Confused About Molly Babies

[westieboy12]

Hiya

My black mollies have just had babies, I have no other colour mollies in my tank and all but 1 of the babies are black. 1 molly baby is a gold colour. is this possible or has it happened to anyone else ?

Thank you

 

[fluttermoth]

It's perfectly possible and happens all the time. It just means that the gold clour is rescesive and is 'hidden' by the gene for black in the other mollies; that one fry has managed to inherit a gene for 'gold' from each parent and no genes for 'black'

Hope that helps

 

[Crazycat lady]

Yea I remember that from A-level biology. both black parents would have to have the recessive gold gene for this to happen.

I'm gonna attempt to explain it!

Each parent will have the black gene 'B' and the gold gene 'g'(we put g in lower case because it is recessive) so parents genetic makeup is Bg. They are black because even though the gold gene is there the black completely dominates it.

Each baby will get only 1 gene from each parent. So there are 4 options for the frys makeup

BB black fry
Bg black fry
gB black fry
gg gold fry

Middle 2 are the same make but there are 2 ways it can happen B from daddy g from mummy. B from mummy g from daddy.

So statistically speaking one quarter should be gold (probabillity is never accurate tho)

Hope that made sense x

 

[colleen0309]

Welcome and good morning! That little gold one must look adorable in with all the black ones.

 

[westieboy12]

Welcome and good morning! That little gold one must look adorable in with all the black ones.

Thank you everyone for your help, and yes it looks amazing and has become my fav fish overnight " but don't tell the other fish "