Hell, I am new to the forum and was wondering if someone could help me out. I have a 55 gallon tropical freshwater community tank with love plants and I suppliment the filtration with aged peat.i have 4 male guppies, 6 bolivian rams, 3 german blue rams,4 balloon mollies and a whole slee of platties because they keep breading. This last set though, is what I am wondering about.All my platies are eother mickey mouse or pineapple. I do have one red male, but the off spring 1 white, 1 all grey, 1 both orange and grey, 2 all orange, and 1 almondt a yellow and grey.they all look to be platies, but how? Do balloon mollies look to be platties when very young?
Trouble With Fish Species
- Thread starter Garganoj
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Hello and welcome to the forum.
Okay, so what I can tell you is that the fish you have are a mixture of soft water fish and hard water fish and one type which is brackish (the mollies) None of these fish are designed to live together. The livebearers (platies, mollies and guppies) will not thrive in soft water and given that you are running peat in your filter suggests you are attempting to soften the water? The rams are all soft water loving fish and will not thrive in hard water so at some point you are going to need to address this issue. If your water is naturally soft, or you have softened it by the addition of peat, then the live bearers are really going to struggle and their lives will be shortened due to this. Keeping them in an unnatural enviroment causes damage to their internal organs so it's something we can't see until we wake up one morning to find them dead. Many people new to the hobby have made this mistake (myself included) and so I always like to point it out where appropriate
On to your original question. Firstly we'd need to know how long you have had the female platies and the female mollies? Female live bearers can hold sperm for up to 6 months and so if you have had them for less than that time then the young they have produced may not have been fathered by your red male. This would account for the colour difference.
Now, I believe there was some discussion a few years ago about whether mollies and platies could interbreed and I think the conclusion to that discussion was that they can. Given this you may want to re-consider your stocking there. If you end up with molly/platy hybrids what are your plans for them?
It is possible though that the fry you have are platy or molly and in the early days the fry can be similar looking so it will be worth waiting to see what they turn out to be.
As a side note - were you aware of how the balloon molly came about? All types of 'balloon' fish came about through a birth defect. Fish were born with a bent spines and someone in their wisdom thought this was interesting and set about 'creating' fish with this birth defect and labelled them 'balloon'. Fish genetics is incredibly complex and I would be interested to know if fry from the balloon molly are all balloon themselves or if some revert to the original molly with the natural straight spine. Let me know on that
Hope that helps you somewhat
Okay, so what I can tell you is that the fish you have are a mixture of soft water fish and hard water fish and one type which is brackish (the mollies) None of these fish are designed to live together. The livebearers (platies, mollies and guppies) will not thrive in soft water and given that you are running peat in your filter suggests you are attempting to soften the water? The rams are all soft water loving fish and will not thrive in hard water so at some point you are going to need to address this issue. If your water is naturally soft, or you have softened it by the addition of peat, then the live bearers are really going to struggle and their lives will be shortened due to this. Keeping them in an unnatural enviroment causes damage to their internal organs so it's something we can't see until we wake up one morning to find them dead. Many people new to the hobby have made this mistake (myself included) and so I always like to point it out where appropriate
On to your original question. Firstly we'd need to know how long you have had the female platies and the female mollies? Female live bearers can hold sperm for up to 6 months and so if you have had them for less than that time then the young they have produced may not have been fathered by your red male. This would account for the colour difference.
Now, I believe there was some discussion a few years ago about whether mollies and platies could interbreed and I think the conclusion to that discussion was that they can. Given this you may want to re-consider your stocking there. If you end up with molly/platy hybrids what are your plans for them?
It is possible though that the fry you have are platy or molly and in the early days the fry can be similar looking so it will be worth waiting to see what they turn out to be.
As a side note - were you aware of how the balloon molly came about? All types of 'balloon' fish came about through a birth defect. Fish were born with a bent spines and someone in their wisdom thought this was interesting and set about 'creating' fish with this birth defect and labelled them 'balloon'. Fish genetics is incredibly complex and I would be interested to know if fry from the balloon molly are all balloon themselves or if some revert to the original molly with the natural straight spine. Let me know on that
Hope that helps you somewhat
fish48
Fish Gatherer
[SIZE=10.5pt]It may be possible for mollies and guppies to interbreed and its not as straightforward as people seem to think, as for [/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt]mollies and platies they are of two different species therefore [/SIZE]Most likely[SIZE=10.5pt] impossible for them to interbreed even if there is a possibility. 1/ having both sexes of [/SIZE]males and females of [SIZE=10.5pt]mollies and both sexes of guppies altogether in the same fish tank will almost certainly end up in failure when it comes to them interbreeding. 2/ the only way to know if they have interbred is to start with one male of one species and one virgin female of the other species. [/SIZE]
Thank you for yhe replies. 1) originally, I was not aware that mollies, platies, and guppies were not tolerant of soft water. I asked the fish store peeos snd they said they would all thrive together. But, after some research I fount they were wrong as you pointed out. I will be getting another tank and seperate the mollies, guppies, and platies, while keeping the rams seperate. 2) I will monitor the fry as they grow and let you know. After posting the original post, I looked at the fish and I believe I have both mollies and platies. Both have birth within a few days of each other, thus the confusion. Based on the coloring of the BM fry,the two female balloon mollies that I belive gave birth are now deceased, which I believe during birthing. Again, may explain some of my confusion. Again, thank you for you responses. I will leep you updated.
no problem, happy to help. I've just been reading some posts about whether platies and mollies can interbreed and there's generally a very heated debate about it. I'd not heard that guppies and mollies can interbreed though ... it's all good information to have.
One thing you will learn in the hobby Garganoj is never to fully trust the staff in pet stores. In the large pet chains the staff tend to be just general sales staff and their knowledge on pets tends to vary. Some have good knowledge, others have none but pretend they have a lot!! lol
If you want to know something ask us here. We're all fellow fish keepers and we have nothing to gain by misleading you. If someone doesn't know the answer to your query there is always someone that does, plus we all learn from each other too
I wonder if the balloon mollies died giving birth because they are balloon ... it does make me wonder if their birth defect makes it difficult (and potentially dangerous) for them to give birth. I myself have never kept any 'balloon' species of fish. Once I learned how they got like that I vowed not to encourage the breeders by buying them.
If your water is on the soft side you could try using a crushed coral as a substrate for the livebearer tank only. Crushed coral will raise pH and hardness and it;s something keepers of African cichlids do to bring the pH up to 8 and beyond. It would be good to know what your source water is like though so we can advise you better in this. When you can, test the pH, gH and kH and let us know the figures
One thing you will learn in the hobby Garganoj is never to fully trust the staff in pet stores. In the large pet chains the staff tend to be just general sales staff and their knowledge on pets tends to vary. Some have good knowledge, others have none but pretend they have a lot!! lol
If you want to know something ask us here. We're all fellow fish keepers and we have nothing to gain by misleading you. If someone doesn't know the answer to your query there is always someone that does, plus we all learn from each other too
I wonder if the balloon mollies died giving birth because they are balloon ... it does make me wonder if their birth defect makes it difficult (and potentially dangerous) for them to give birth. I myself have never kept any 'balloon' species of fish. Once I learned how they got like that I vowed not to encourage the breeders by buying them.
If your water is on the soft side you could try using a crushed coral as a substrate for the livebearer tank only. Crushed coral will raise pH and hardness and it;s something keepers of African cichlids do to bring the pH up to 8 and beyond. It would be good to know what your source water is like though so we can advise you better in this. When you can, test the pH, gH and kH and let us know the figures
fish48
Fish Gatherer
If any of this was true these fishes would be distributed throughout the fish keeping hobby.Akasha72 said:
This is the only way to find out if they can or will interbreed
It may be possible for mollies and guppies to interbreed and its not as straightforward as people seem to think, as for mollies and platies they are of two different species therefore Most likely impossible for them to interbreed even if there is a possibility. 1/ having both sexes of males and females of mollies and both sexes of guppies altogether in the same fish tank will almost certainly end up in failure when it comes to them interbreeding. 2/ the only way to know if they have interbred is to start with one male of one species and one virgin female of the other species.
Thanks for the info again. I am not a beginner to the fish hobby, but a beginner with a peaceful community tank. I have had a semi aggressive tank which was easy to know what species can go together, (2 leapard puffers, 2 fresh water moray eels, 2 adult angels) But, the peaceful community tank is tricky in the fact that, as I am learning, just because they are peaceful, doesn't mean they should live together. I talked with the wife and we will be getting another tank for the Mollies (she picked out the balloon mollies originally) and I will be selling the platies. This will open up some space for the powder blue gruamies I have been wanting in the 55. Also, I will be getting more plants to offset the bio load, which will be greatly reduced once the platties are gone.
Sorry not lepard puffers, bumble bee puffers and 2 snowflake eels.
Sorry not lepard puffers, bumble bee puffers and 2 snowflake eels.
If mollies, platies and guppies could be induced to interbreed, the offspring would almost certainly be "mules", i. e., sterile and therefor of no commercial or practical value. TFH had an article about mollie/guppy hybrids when I was a kid (I'm 64 in a few days), and they were sterile.
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