Breeding mollys

[~nessy~]

hi i am thinking about breeding mollys and wondering if anyone can give me any advice on how to breed them

 

[Annastasia]

Breeding Mollies is pretty easy. You just need at least a 20 gallon tank, food, and a male and female Molly.

However, there is a lot of things people do not realize when they breed Livebearers...

1. They have lots of fry. Especially Mollies. These guys can have 100+ fry EACH Month.
2. They will keep having a lot of fry, as long as they live, or as long as you have a male and female together. Even if you seperate them, this will not stop the breeding for quite some time, as Livebearers can store sperm and have 7 pregnancies without a male.
3. Regular Mollies grow to 4". Sailfin Mollies can grow to 6".
4. All these fry are going to need homes. Chances are your LFS is not going to be able to take all these fry, every month. And I don't think you'll be able to have enough tanks to keep all these fry.
5. All these fry can grow up, and start breeding themselves, so you'll have even more fry.

Just a few things to keep in mind, before you breed.

If you do decide to breed, and you are prepared for the hundreds of fry, you'll need a 20 gallon or larger tank. The best ratio for breeding is one male to 2-3 females. If you are planning to raise these fry in the tank, you'll need plants (fake or real) for them to hide in to get away from the parents (so they don't get eaten), along with rocks, caves, wood...anything that will give them places to hide.

If you are planning to raise them in a seperate tank (Preferably a big tank, because Molly babies will get big) you'll have to net them out of the tank once they are born, or put the mother in there right before she is about to give birth. They will need to be feed small foods for the first few weeks. Good fry foods are TetraMin Fry food and Hikari First bites. Baby brine shrimp works well too. They can move onto flakes and Freeze-dried, Frozen, or Live Brine Shrimp, Bloodworms, Daphnia..etc after a few weeks. Ideally they should be fed at least 3 times a day, preferably 4-6.

If you are going to have a fry tank, I reccommend a sponge filter, so the fry do not get sucked up. You'll also have to do water changes pretty often, because fry need good water quality. You can do water changes using an airline tubing siphon, or a turkey baster.

If you have anymore questions, feel free to ask!

 

[3fsh]

Excellent advice Annastasia! I'd also like to add a few things...

If you really want them to breed, turn up the temperature. (80ish) I've found it really "gets them in the mood" for some reason. Also, make sure that you buy a good quality trio of fish that are in high demand. Otherwise, you will end up with a ton of fry that no one will want. The other reason for the trio is to keep the male from harassing one female. It's even better if you have, say, 2 males and 4-5 females. This helps to spread the... uh... attention so that they don't focus on a specific female and stress her out.

 

[Elisabeth83]

Great advice has been given I'd just like to add a bit.

I own balloon mollies as well as regular black mollies. They have been breeding like crazy. I have them in a 27 gallon tank which I keep the temp at around 80. I also keep quite a bit of salt in the tank. Mollies in particular are prone to getting "The Shimmies" It's usually caused by too low of a temp as well as no salt or too little of salt in the tank. I use 1 teaspoon per 2.5 gallons. Before adding salt my mollies kept dieing and since adding salt I haven't lost a single one. The mollies that my lfs get in are from a breeder who raises them in salt. I know that some people dont use any salt with their mollies and say they are fine. I'd check with the store your going to be buying the mollies from if they use salt or not or if the breeder they got them from uses salt.

While mollies do have a lot of fry like all livebearers I must say it will take some time before they will have large 100+ batches of fry. It takes time for the female molly to get large enough to have these size batches. The largest batch of fry I've had was 18. My black female molly is about 2 inches long and her last batch was only 10.

Also with mollies their fry are born quite a bit bigger than most other livebearers such as swordtails and platies so they tend not to get eaten. This can be a good or a bad thing depending on whether or not your prepared to care for fry pretty much all the time.

Also like Annastasia said if your going to raise them in a separate tank water changes are very important. I do daily water changes on all my fry tanks. At least 50% sometimes 75%. I also rinse the sponge from the filter out in old tank water every other day.

I'm lucky enough that my lfs will take my fry from me for store credit which I use to buy fish food LOL If your raising fry you go through fish food (bloodworm, brine shrimp etc) like you wouldn't believe.

 

[afireinside]

quick question, after mollies r done breeding, how long does it take them to develop and all of that.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Molly fry take up to about a year before they are fully mature although usualy can be sold/rehomed at 6months+ as long as they are just over half grown although you will have to see if your lfs takes in fish at all before you breed them as you don't want to end up in the situation of having tons of fry and no where for them to go- remember if you use salt in the tank, make sure you don't have any salt intolerant fish with them as there are quite a few types, mainly catfish, loachs and tetras and various other fish species.

 

[~nessy~]

hmm thanks so much for the quick replys puts everything into perspective lol

 

[afireinside]

no, i ment like after they r done doing there thing, and when the babies come out.