Sunshine Mollies

[gearyboy]

Just had a look roound the LFS and I liked the look of the above mollies. What am I looking for when sexing them?

 

[red-devil0602]

they're easy to discern if you have good vision... look at the anal fin, the area under the belly... males have an organ for genetic transmission (the gonopodium) that is a modified, tubular structure... Females have rounder abdomens, and fan-shaped anal fins.

 

[Dubby]

Yeah, simple... if its pointy then its a male, rounded is a female What you need to watch out for is when the female has clamped her fins, then it can look pointy!!!

 

[Annastasia]

This is kind of off-topic, but since everyone else told you how to sex them, I need to throw this in.

If you get some of these Mollies, don't buy heavily pregnant females. You can tell which ones they are, they look like they are about to burst. However, if you get these, bringing them home, and acclimating them, and the whole stress of moving can cause them to abort, or have trouble giving birth to their fry. Just a warning.

 

[sylvia]

And to add to that, make sure you get 2 females for every male if you go for a mixed sex group. Otherwise, any males will constantly chase the females and stress them out - by having 2 or more females for every male, this chasing is devided so no single fish is being constantly harassed. Also be careful not to under-estimate the size a molly can reach - you'll find the max. size listed at 2" in many places but they can get to 4" easily and many of the commonly available mollies also happen to be hybrids of larger sailfin species which can get to 6".