How Do I Tell If My Females Are 'mollys' Or 'sailfin Molly

[Joller]

hello, at the LFS they have 2 molly tanks:
an assorted sailfin tank (containing only male sailfins)
and an assorted molly tank (containing both male and female mollys, and possibly female sailfins)

I got all excited and went and bought 2 white male sailfin mollys from the top tank
and 2 white female mollys (under the impression that they were probably female sailfins due to similar colouration)

i'm hoping to breed these fish up to have many white sailfins

but 2 weeks after i bought the fish it hit me that i'm probably breeding hybrids

so how do you tell apart female mollys from female sailfin mollys?

heres some pictures of my 2 females if that helps

Thanks =)

 

[Jenste]

I am not sure if they are sailfin or not, but the rule for happy and healthy livebearers is to keep at least 2 females per male...so you need to buy at least two more females. Male can try to mate so often with females that they can literally die from exhaustion from trying to swim away from the males...having more females means the "attention" is spread around so each female can have some relaxing time.

A stressed tank will not result in big healthy drops.

 

[AstonN24vantage]

your girls arent sailfins - sailfins are huge and have massive dorsal fins.

 

[Joller]

sorry aston but i think you're misinformed, as female sailfins don't grow the massive dorsal fin that male sailfins do.

jenste i'm more than prepared for that situation once it arrives but for the moment things are pretty peaceful

i've been doing alot of searching and i can't find an answer to this anywhere, does anyone know a surefire method of diferentiating the two (female) species?

 

[helterskelter]

It's a female sail fin.
But if it's a Poecilia latipinna or P. velifera it's difficualt to be sure.

But it's defo not the Poecilia sphenops which is the other common molly seen.

 

[meggie18]

I agree with Jenste, the rule is the female to male ratio is supposed to be at least 2:1 in order to increase your chances of fry

 

[AstonN24vantage]

sorry aston but i think you're misinformed, as female sailfins don't grow the massive dorsal fin that male sailfins do.

jenste i'm more than prepared for that situation once it arrives but for the moment things are pretty peaceful

i've been doing alot of searching and i can't find an answer to this anywhere, does anyone know a surefire method of diferentiating the two (female) species?

Oops! but you don't have sailfins.

 

[Joller]

It's a female sail fin.
But if it's a Poecilia latipinna or P. velifera it's difficualt to be sure.

But it's defo not the Poecilia sphenops which is the other common molly seen.

thanks for the reply helter, i will do lots of searching into the different species you've named
do you have any tips for how you ID them?
ps. the photos are of 2 different fish

I agree with Jenste, the rule is the female to male ratio is supposed to be at least 2:1 in order to increase your chances of fry

I'm not looking for advice on this matter, thankyou. (because i'd like to buy more female sailfins but don't know how to ID them )

Oops! but you don't have sailfins.

aston follow this link:
http/www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/descript/sailfinmolly/sailfinmolly.html
half way down the page it has side by side photos of male and female wild type sailfins

 

[AstonN24vantage]

whats the difference in females tho?

 

[Joller]

I've read that P. Latipinna have around 15 dorsal rays, and P. velifera have around 20 (wikipedia)
i've also been searching and counting the rays of photos of P. sphenops and counted between 9 and 12 rays (averaging 10)

so i've counted the dorsal rays of all my mollies (male and female) and they have 14/15, so as for now i'm thinking they are P. latipinna
but if anyone has more information it would be much appreciated (especially if i'm completley wrong )

 

[AstonN24vantage]

so very little difference? too little to actually matter?

 

[helterskelter]

Poecilia sphenops or Molly. Is a smaller fish females getting to 3.5 to 4 inches, smaller dorsal with few fin rays as already discuses.

Poecilia latipinna or P. velifera or Sailfin molly. These can get up to 6 inches in the largest females, while the body do look much the same in all, you right again about the fin ray's. But as far you can go with cultivated fish you cant be 100% sure these days. As their been cross breed between the mollies to develop the colour types.