Bully Molly

[gearhead65]

I have lots of mollies, a betta, some swords and some Cory cats. I purchased the sinking shrimp pellets for the corys, but I have one HUGE female molly (she LOVES to eat) that will bully them all out of the way and eat the pellets. She's very stingy with any food in the tank. Kinda strange though that she never bullies the tiny betta. She totally ignores her. So, my question is this; is there any sinking food that I can feed my cats that the mollies don't care for?

 

[Katty]

You could try different brands of sinking wafers (algae, shrimp, general bottom feeder) but I bet you she'll probably like all of those ones too. What I do with my greedy betta is feed my corys after lights out, which seems to work fine for everybody. If that doesn't work and the molly figures that trick out, you could catch her in a floating breeding trap or temporarily put in a tank divider with her on one side and the cories on the other, feed the corys, then release her when they're done. But they eat rather slow so this might not be feasible to keep her separated for such a long time.

 

[Assaye]

In short - no. You might be lucky to find a brand the molly doesn't like but generally they'll eat you out of house and home.

My method for dealing with bullies is either to remove the offending fish to a different tank or to implement a more subtle feeding regime. With my corys I feed them about an hour after I have turned the tank lights out. They'll generally snuffle around to find it but most of the other fish will be snoozing. Another good method is to allow the molly to eat some pellets - great dietry variation for her - and just feed enough around the tank that while miss molly is feasting in one corner, the corys can eat elsewhere.