Mollies

[cmps]

I had a bunch of guppies, like around 10 in a five gallon tank...out of that only one survived and so far going strong, I gave up on guppies..they are complicated.
Now I am into mollies..don't really know what kind I have..I was told that they are dalmations.
I have two females and one male.
First time around I had one orange color male and a dalmation female..well, the female got pregnant and the male died...boohoo.
There is only two left out of 20 and their head is orange while their body is spotted.
Now, that I have all dalmation type, and one female is pregnant, can't seem to find her gravid spot, because she had black dots all over.
Had to seperate the male from the two females, because he is attacking them...is this natural?
In fact one of the female keeps hiding behind the air filter and won't come out to eat. I am also worried, because the closer it gets for the other female to deliver her fry...he keeps trying to insert more sperm in her and she would not have time to rest after her first delivery.
Will this harm my two females to be seperated from him...or it won't matter?
Thanks for any advice or replies you give.

 

[Annastasia]

What size tank are they in? Any other fish? Water Params?

The fact that he is attacking them, is fairly normal if there are too many Mollies in a small space. The female hiding behind the filter is also probably getting very stressed by him attacking her, and that could lead to birthing difficulties, abortion, or death while giving birth.

Anyway, to answer your question, no, it won't harm the female. They'll be happy to not have a male afetr them all the time, but remember, they will still keep producing fry. They can store sperm from one mating with a male for up to 7 pregnancies afterwards. So no matter what you do, she's never going to get a chance to 'rest' after her delivery, because she'll already be pregnant again.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I think you should separate the male from the females but breeding nets are too small for mollys so unless you have another tank im not sure how you'll separate them in the current tank as either way you'll leave one or more or the mollys with waaay too little space...The other issue is that a 5gal tank is too small for mollys either so you really need to upgrade your tank as otherwise you'll keep losing fish through stress. How long has the tank been set up and what is your average tank maintanence regime and how often do you do it ?