Balloon Molly pregnant??

[Lucy Corbettt]

So my sister had two balloon mollies, one male and one female, but unfortunately the female passed about two weeks ago. The male was going crazy and hasn’t stopped within days, he even started to bother the female neon tetra that my sister has. I made my mum take me to petsathome to go and buy two females so that he would calm down and stop stressing himself and the neon tetra out. I managed to pick two which I thought were females (I got the ones with the biggest stomachs, big mistake) they were both female but one of them gave birth to around 20 fry after only a few days of owning her. We have bought another tank so that we can cycle it and hopefully once it’s cycled we can move the fry into it as they are getting older, we are then trying to find people to take them as we only have two tanks that are ten and thirty gallons. Anyway getting to the point, I am now starting to wonder if the other female is also pregnant. I am terrible at recognising the signs (gravid spot and squared stomach) so I was wondering if any of you guys would be able to tell. I’m hoping she’s not pregnant due to the fact that we have so many at the moment and our fish are ignoring the fry and won’t eat them even if we wanted. Now that I’m looking, her stomach does look very flat at the bottom and she has been hiding away a bit.
Thanks in advance

 

[seangee]

The one on the left is a male. If the female has ever been in the same tank as a male then she is pregnant. They can store the sperm for up to 6 months so even if you remove the male there will be more on the way .

Personally I would not try to save the fry unless you have an unlimited budget for new tanks, or a very accomodating LFS. If there are plants in the tank some will survive but don't stress about them.

 

[Lucy Corbettt]

The one on the left is a male. If the female has ever been in the same tank as a male then she is pregnant. They can store the sperm for up to 6 months so even if you remove the male there will be more on the way .

Personally I would not try to save the fry unless you have an unlimited budget for new tanks, or a very accomodating LFS. If there are plants in the tank some will survive but don't stress about them.

Thankyou, we haven’t bothered to try and save the fry but even after 3 days not a single one has been eaten so we are already making sure that we have enough space and people to give them to incase they survive. I think my sister is really regretting buying balloon mollies now i guess the breeding will only end once the male has passed or if we give him away, but hopefully not too many of the fry will survive

 

[seangee]

Thankyou, we haven’t bothered to try and save the fry but even after 3 days not a single one has been eaten so we are already making sure that we have enough space and people to give them to incase they survive. I think my sister is really regretting buying balloon mollies now i guess the breeding will only end once the male has passed or if we give him away, but hopefully not too many of the fry will survive

I didn't mean she can have fry any time in the next 6 months. I meant she can have many lots of fry over the next 6 months, and if any of those fry are male ...

If nothing else separate the males and females as soon as they are identifiable as such. The male has a modified anal fin (gonopodium) which is the easiest way to tell them apart

 

[Essjay]

All the fry will look female at first, and the males will only become apparent at puberty a few months later.