Pearl The Bully

[joselaz5780]

Got a female silver molly named pearl and i already had a black molly in my tank. I got her pregnant since there weren't anymore, and she gave birth two days after arriving in the tank. I put the 17 babies in the breeding net and she seems like she has been protecting them. Whenever the black molly gets near the net, she scares him away. The platies and sword tail pass by but she doesn't do anything but the platies nip at the net of the breeder. Now she has gotten extremely aggressive with the black molly she can see him on the other side of the tank swimming happily away from the breeder and she chases him. Is this normal? Should i be concerned? Also, i have had 2 sunburst platies for about 7 months now in the tank and now my dad wants to take them out so the fry can stay but i have grown attached to them(i always get attached to my fish after a couple of months). I really don't want them gone and i keep telling him that we can give the fry instead of them. We did want the mollies to mate(mostly him) and he was the one that took pearl in pregnant. Now how can i convince him to keep the sunbursts? I suggested keeping one of them and his answer really wasn't clear. So getting back to my questions, What is wrong with pearl? and How can i convince my dad not to give the fish away? The only place to give them to is the LFS, but i know that they won't be as happy there and they won't be loved anymore

 

[Neptune54]

I don't have an answer to the first question, unfortunately. Once, I thought that one of my female platies was bullying the other female, but then I took a closer look and it was a male! Are there any specific reasons that your dad doesn't want both the fry and the adults? If it's because of over population, you could always get another tank. Other than that, I don't have any pointers. Sorry that I couldn't be a better help.

 

[the_lock_man]

Livebearers have no parental skills at all - if the female was trying to protect the young, she'd be chasing all the fish, not just the male molly. She is just being a bully, mollies can often be like that. There is no way to get her to stop, it's not like you can put her on the naughty step.

I would suggest that you point out to your dad that if you keep the fry, there'll be another batch every month, and then the fry will reach sexual maturity and begin to breed themselves, and soon you will be overrun with fry (as in, hundreds). If you give each batch of fry away, then you won't be overrun.