Large Pregnant Female Molly

[cwalby1985]

i have a 2ft tank set up since christmas. i have 2 male salefin mollies, 3 female salefin mollies and 2 female lyretails. one of my salefin females has been staying very close to the heater the last week a has a large rounded abdomen. i moved her to a breeder trap as she started to look squared but she then got a lot smaller in size. there was nothing but fecies at the bottom of the breeding trap. i moved her out of the trap back in to the main tank 2 days ago and now she is huge again. any idea what could be going on with her. any help would be great
thanks

 

[Joshwainwright]

Believe it or not, fish can actually get constipated. Ensure you are feeding your fish the correct food and also make sure you're not overfeeding your fish. Keep an eye on her and if the build up of faeces persists, decrease feeding and possibly dose some epsom salts (magnesium sulphate.)

 

[cwalby1985]

thanks, maybe thats it. i feed them flakes and supliment twice a week with frozen blood worm pellets and also give them peas as that was what was recommended by the shop. she has a dark spot by her anus now and you can see dark small spots in her abdomen aswell. lets hope it passes then. should i let her out of the breeding trap as i put her back in when she started to square off again

 

[Joshwainwright]

I'm not entirely sure if she is actually constipated or not so what I would do is keep her in the breeding trap and see what happens. I could be wrong and she could be pregnant so it's probably better to be safe. Also, you can keep a closer eye on her in the breeding trap.

 

[cwalby1985]

thank you ever so much for your advice.
im new to all this. never kept fish before and just want to make sure im doing the right thing for the little guys.
you have been a great help. i will wait and see what happens

 

[Joshwainwright]

No problem, that's what this forum was created for.

Keep us updated on what happens!

 

[lilfishie]

if you just have the mollies then i have found they don't eat there fry so if she is pregnant then she should be fine to drop them in the main tank.

keep us updated

 

[OldMan47]

Almost true Lilfishie.
Mollies do eat some of their fry but plenty of fry will survive in an all molly tank. Molly fry are much larger than many of the other common livebearers and their parents are more vegetarian and less carnivorous than many other common livebearers. That means that the large fry with largely vegetarian parents have a decent chance of surviving. My own experience with a nice big female and her fry was that I ended up with about 30 fry who survived the first days but a typical molly drop is closer to 40 fry. That means that although I had good survival, some were probably lost to predation.
When I was much younger, I tried breeding the common black mollies in a group situation and often saw about 10 or 15 survive from a drop. Again, it was plenty for me but not nearly as many as are common in a single drop of fry.

 

[lilfishie]

There all different, i had a guppy that wouldn't touch fry, maybe i fed them too much

these are just my experience