Pregnant mollies and feeding

[Alien Anna]

I have three female mollies in the tank, of whom two are definitely pregnant (or they've swallowed marbles recently). The two "blooming" mollies are voraciously hungry (even worse than normal).

Today when I did a water change (I have high nitrate levels due to my plants dying due to the lights being off for a fortnight, so I'm doing 10% every two days), as soon as I turned the filter back on they were lurking round the filter outlet, trying to eat the stuff that came out of it! I gave them some flake, which they wolfed down. They were also having a go at some giant vallis. I'm feeding them about 2 or 3 times a day, with very small amounts (due to concerns over the nitrate level) but they are insatiable.

How much should a pregnant molly eat to be healthy? I don't want them getting fat and exacerbating my nitrate problem.

 

[aernympha]

well i feed mine once a day an dthat its ocacsionally if ther lucky some one give birth and soem fish get a few treats its funny the only relise there are babies when i am searching for them with my net then they are like hmmmmmmmm babies muhahhahaha na dthey start searching !!! and they now learnt all the abbaies hind outs!! ohwell!!! if u want u can feed ur fish twice a day but this would just be spreading what i give mine over tow meals .... also u could by ur fish live food or forzen food or u could give them vegise like peas are good!! of letice

 

[William]

Hi AA do you ever feed your fish livefood such as bloodworm - they'll love you for it!! I feed my fish usually twice a day with no special treatment for pregnant fish, unless I want to keep the babies in which case I feed bloodworm twice a week in place of flake

 

[Alien Anna]

Hi William - yes, I do occasionally give mine live food, but it's only about once a month because my nearest LFS isn't exactly near. I feed frozen food about once every other day, and quite a range of different dried foods.

My mollies were worrying me by hanging about at the surface near the filter outlet, but then I noticed that they were ignoring the air-stone and ignoring the other filter outlet, so it can't be an oxygen issue. However, that filter, being quite a small one that gets quickly over-loaded, there was a lot of debris flying out of it. I think they imagine its food.