Molly Questions ...i'm A Beginner :)

[alli_noelle]

Hi. I was thinking of getting my brother a balloon molly for Christmas. He's done a lot of research, but I have a few questions.

1. I've read that they breed very quickly. If I got two fish that were accidentally one of each sex, would we end up with loads of fry?

2. I have a ten gallon tank already. Would I need 20 gallons for one or two mollies?

I think that's it...there seemed like more when I was thinking about it lol.

Thankyou!

Alli

 

[Athena]

Hi - answering your queries:

1. Yes they do and yes you would end up with regular batches of fry, although some of these may get eaten by the parents. Having said that I have found with my mollies that the fry are pretty good at hiding at the base of plants and so many do survive and the adults tend not to bother them so much (as an example, from a batch of, say 30 fry, I had 10 fry that survived to adulthood).


2. 10 gallons would be plenty fine for a pair (that's roughly a 2ft tank isn't it?). Obviously, the more fry they have and the more fry that survive you would need to decide how many you would keep or give away.

Hope that's helped - Athena

 

[alli_noelle]

Thank you, that did help!

 

[OldMan47]

Athena you are right, a 10 gallon is about a 2 ft tank. Be aware that even if you have only female mollies, they can carry sperm packets for about 6 pregnancies. This means that even a female or two in a tank can keep having fry for at least 6 months. By that time, there will be plenty of males to keep things going. In the wild this is a survival trait but it doesn't work out so well in the small confines of an aquarium.

 

[twilight_angel]

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