Put My Molly In Breeder!

[standbyme53]

I bought my beautiful orange and white lyretail molly at the store, and she is georgeous! I just got her yesterday and she was heavily pregnant when I bought her! She is VERY squared off, none of my guppies got this square before birth! She is very round from the front though. I'm not sure if it's possible but she's a bit more square on the left side it looks like... At her butt, the bottom hole looks like it has a white tube in it. Is the bottom hole the poop chute... or the birthing chute? I put her in the breeder the night I got her, then took her out in the morning. I put her back in a couple minutes ago... My gourami was bugging her. She stayed at the back of the aquarium by the plants and paced back and forth along the tank. her gravid spot is huge! She hasn't eaten since I got her... I don't want to move her out of the breeder again until she gives birth. How long? Please don't tell me to move her to another tank because I have a 1.5 L and it has no hiding spots and I'd have to set it all up... so... i would appreciate how far along she is and how you knew yours was going to give birth! Please and thank-you!!!

 

[OldMan47]

The 1.5 litre is way too small for a molly adult to swim in. It is even too small for the fry from a single drop. I always favor a separate birthing tank for my mollies but I use a 10 gallon, about 37 litres, tank for that purpose. The end result is that about 30 of the fry from a typical drop will survive. This is a picture of some of my fry, with mom, the day they were dropped in a 10 gallon.

About 4 1/2 weeks later the tank looked like this.

 

[Gilli]

Sounds like she is ready to drop at any time - platies and mollies which are about to spawn will seem almost square from the back view and will be very swollen in the middle.