Mollies

[Ally555]

Hi everyone,
I have 3 Mollies in a community tank kept with corys, 1 angel, neons, + a few others. Anyway, there is 2 males and 1 female (I know your meant to have more females).
The two males constantly annoy the female, and if the smallest male goes near the female the largest male chases the little one away. Is that normal?
Also the female is about 5 or so cm long. Could she get pregnant at this size?

 

[nosoup4you]

This all sounds like normal behavior for a tank with too much testosterone. You should really try to get some more girls in there to spread the aggression around. At 5 cm, she is likely sexually mature and with two boys in the tank, she's probably already pregnant. LOL

 

[Ally555]

I was definately thinking about getting more females but if I get any more my tank will be overstocked.

If the female is pregnant will any of the babys survive cos I only have 1 tank (my community tank)?

The 2 males have not grown as much as the female. Is there any reason for this?

Also would the boy's be sexually mature?
The smallest male is about 2.5 to 4 cm long, the largest male is around 5 to 6 cm, and as I have already said the female is around 5 cm long.

(When I got them the female was only slightly bigger than the smallest male and now she's almost the size of the largest male.)

If I can get any good pics of any of my mollies I'll hopefully post them.

 

[LauraFrog]

Males become sexually mature as soon as they develop the gonopodium (the converted anal fin) and can move it. This usually happens at about six weeks to three months of age, or about 1.5-2cm long. They just won't produce many viable sperm until they are a bit larger, but they are still capable of getting a female pregnant. I have seen inch long females dropping fry. Five cms may be fully grown if your mollies are small sphenops mollies.

If you can't get any more mollies what I would do is return one of the males and buy another female. If you don't do this you are really putting your female in danger of stress related health issues. In the wild if she was approached by a male and not ready to mate, she would leave. When she's confined by glass walls this isn't an option.

If you really want to keep the males you could also return the female and buy another male, because there are usually no aggression issues when only males are kept. Or you could ditch some of the other fish and buy more females - if the tank is fully stocked with so few fish, it's probably not going to be large enough for that angelfish, at least not long term. They need a large space.

 

[Ally555]

The tank is 20 something gallons.

I'll think about swaping 1 of the males for another female.

 

[LauraFrog]

That would be fine. How is the tank filtered?

 

[OldMan47]

I don't think you are overstocked yet Ally. With an angel in the tank, no matter how small the angel is, you will not likely have any fry survive. What this means is that you won't become overstocked accidentally. If you start taking strong measures to help fry survive, you could still get there but it is not something you need to worry about unless you make that effort. Exchanging a male for a female does sound like a good idea for the health of the present female.

 

[Ally555]

The tank is filtered.
Also I noticed that the larger male isn't annoying the female as much as he used to. He still does occasionally, but now he sort of swims near the female and it the little male comes he chases him off (it's kind of like he protects her). Which I think is kind of cute.
Is it possible that they have become some kind of pair?
Or is it just a coincidence!!!

 

[twilight_angel]

The tank is filtered.
Also I noticed that the larger male isn't annoying the female as much as he used to. He still does occasionally, but now he sort of swims near the female and it the little male comes he chases him off (it's kind of like he protects her). Which I think is kind of cute.
Is it possible that they have become some kind of pair?
Or is it just a coincidence!!!

how cute and so lovely...

maybe they are ment for each other...lol...

is the small male, by now, always protect the female...

 

[Ally555]

She is protected most of the time. Occasionally the larger male is somewhere else and he can't protect her, but if he's in the area and see's the little male annoying her he chases him off.
Why?

 

[Ally555]

Come on, does anyone know why?

 

[Ally555]

BUMP!!!