Mollies Changing Colors?

[Kellie]

Hey there, I have 2 male dalamation mollies that I got when I first got the tank. Its been about 3 months now and my first look totally different then than now. haha. Is this normal, is something wrong with them? They act totally fine, just changed colors on me, now I can hardly tell them apart cuz their both jetblack with some white speckles.

Here was my white and black one

And now they look like this, one is a litlle darker

so..yeah..any info would be great

 

[*Fishkies*]

Wow that's really neat. My thought would be that it could depend on the type of food you are feeding them. I know with some of my fish. Depending on the food they are receiving it changes their colors. Like for my bettas i know the food i give them changes their colors and brings their true colors out and makes them much brighter.

 

[Jozlyn]

Wow, that's weird, I've heard/read about them changing sex, but never changing colour!

My molly looks exactly like your top picture, I've had her for about 4 months and she hasn't changed at all.

 

[Kellie]

Wow, that's weird, I've heard/read about them changing sex, but never changing colour!

My molly looks exactly like your top picture, I've had her for about 4 months and she hasn't changed at all.

yeah its super strange. LOL They are like identical now too. I feed them flakes and brineshrimp. I liked the colors orginally so Im kinda bummed how they look now but all well LOL

 

[*Fishkies*]

Well at least their healthy!!! That's really cool how that happened though.

 

[AndyOleszczuk]

My female molly did that just before she gave birth !!! Might just be a coincidence as she still looks like that after she has given birth.

 

[Kellie]

bump, has anyone else heard of this?

 

[freshwaterfishlover]

maybe Mollies do color change. Once I had 10 small Feeder Goldfish in a tank and when they got about 4-5" all the Gold ones started to turn Silver like the rest. I think Mollies gio threw a Color Change, but why light to Dark not dark to light.

 

[Melly]

I am so glad someone has mentioned this. My two dalmation mollies were mainly white when I got them and now they are almost all black !!! One has changed more dramatically than the other. As I have never kept tropical fish before I wasn't sure if it was normal or not .. ooooer

 

[tmack]

I have a female Gold Dust Molly that was originally all yellow. As she's getting older she's getting a lot of black on her now. Someone I know with all black mollies has a few that are getting patches of white scales now (not diseased). I've always assumed that the color changes are just a natural thing in mollies.

 

[SnBMeg]

That's pretty neat! I knew that goldfish can change color throughout their lives, but I had no idea that mollies can, too!

I wonder if the lighting might also have something to do with it? Lights that are high in the red spectrum have been proven to increase black coloring--normally very unstable and the first to disappear--in goldfish...

 

[Kellie]

I am so glad someone has mentioned this. My two dalmation mollies were mainly white when I got them and now they are almost all black !!! One has changed more dramatically than the other. As I have never kept tropical fish before I wasn't sure if it was normal or not .. ooooer

Yay! So I guess it just happens, just sucks cuz I thought my dalmation was beautiful when he was mainly white, but now he looks like tar! hahha I mollie fry who are white so I wonder ehat color theyll end up being!

 

[K.J.]

That's interesting. I don't have anything to advise you on, though, but as long as the mollies seem okay they should be fine. Perhaps they were less black when they were stressed in the store? Perhaps they got blacker as they got older..

 

[Bignose]

Mollies have been selectively bred and cross-bred with guppies so many times that their genes are almost literally a scramble. The point is, that the dominant colors can take a very long time before they fully express themselves. Many of the dalmation mollies that you can get in the sotre will end up like 95% black rather than the 50/50 mix most of them are. And if you look closely, most of the dalmation mollies will have a few yellow or blue patches. This is all those color morph genes breaking through in just a few places. It is almost impossible to say what color a molly will end up with in the end, but most will be changing colors as the dominant colors slowly become dominant.

 

[Sailor]

Yeah I have a molly that started out about 50/50 and is now all black and one that has not changed