How Much Longer ?

[Bhoffman57]

Hello

I am new to fish. I bought a few molly fish from the pet store yesterday. Brought them home and put them in the tank. A friend that came to visit has told me that this one is pregnant. So, back to the pet store I went after doing a bit of research. I bought a breeding box. Can anyone help me determine roughly how long she has left before dropping? I have released her from the box so she doesn't get stressed. Mainly put her in there to get this pic. Hope the pics are good enough and not too blurry.

Thanks in advance

 

[hudsona85]

Hello,
 
I do not see any pictures posted. Is your tank cycled?

 

[Bhoffman57]

I will try to post pictures. I thought I had attached them. Oops. Yes my tank is cycled. It was running with a couple live plants in it for 2 weeks. I will try to figure out how to get pics up.
Here she is.

 

[Ch4rlie]

I will try to post pictures. I thought I had attached them. Oops. Yes my tank is cycled. It was running with a couple live plants in it for 2 weeks. I will try to figure out how to get pics up.
Here she is.

 
2 weeks with live plants is not cycling the tank am afraid.
 
You need to do water tests and add ammonia at the relevant times with correct dosages and usually takes about 4 - 6 weeks on average to complete successfully providing instructions are followed, this could be done quicker if you can add some established media from another tank or perhaps using Dr Tim's One and Only Nitrifying Bacteria or Tetra Safe Start.
 
Of course you cannot add ammonia if you have fish in your tank so that means effectively you will be doing a fish in cycle, this is harder to do than cycling without fish.
 
So that means you have two choices -
 
1 - rehome your mollies and whatever else you may have in that tank and start to do a fishless cycless following this article
 
Cycling Your First Fresh Water Tank
 
or 2 - start doing a fish in cycle, do be aware this will likely take longer and more work in terms of doing lots of water changes over the coming weeks / months. read the following two articles if you decide on this if you cannot or won't rehome your mollies -
 
Rescuing A Fish In Cycle Gone Wild - Part I
 
Rescuing A Fish In Cycle Gone Wild - Part Il
 
It may also help if you can provide some information about your tank such as tank size and if you have a water test kit (you will need this for cycling) and let us know what the water parameters are currently (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph).
 
And lastly, your pics are still not showing, you may be having trouble with uploading pics, try this link to see if this helps you -
 
Uploading Pictures To Forum


 

 

[Byron]

How large is the aquarium?  Mollies (you initially say you bought "a few") grow to a reasonable size (4-5 inches, some even 6 inches) and they need space.  If you have males and females, you need more females than males to avoid severe stress to the females from the males...but at the same time you will have dozens of fry every month, eventually hundreds.  These will need somewhere to go.
 
Never use breeding boxes with mollies; this will stress them badly.
 
On the cycling, I agree with the advice but at this point, depending what your tank size is and what the plants are, it might be best to add a good bacterial supplement.  After two weeks some bacteria is certain to be present, and I would not further stress the fish with moves and other tanks.  Unless you return them to the store of course.
 
Ammonia is highly toxic to fish, and mollies are especially sensitive to it.
 
Byron.

 

[Hey336]

When i first started my 10 gallon i put my molly in after an hour of set up and hes still alive aswel as a father its been many months

 

[fluttermoth]

When i first started my 10 gallon i put my molly in after an hour of set up and hes still alive aswel as a father its been many months

 
Many fish do survive fish-in cycles, but equally many don't, which is why we never recommend fish-in cycling.
 
It can also have long term effects, so fish might not live as long or grow as large as they should and be more prone to catching other diseases.