What To Do With My Molly?

[JoshuaA]

Hello,

So I have a standard "run of the mill" molly that I bought for my freshwater community tank some time ago. My girlfriend had a beautiful one and was the sweetest thing and so friendly. Unfortunately mine was pretty much the opposite it's an absolute menace and in my 125l community tank it goes mental and chases all my rummy nose and neon tetras and then bashes my gouramis about. It ignores my ram and Corydoras but everything else pretty much has had to shy away for the past month. It was never like this initially and it probably changed its attitude after a month.

So I had a tank which had a cycle complete and was in the stage of stocking it in preparation for a betta, fully planted and with tropica substrate etc. Was planned to be a looker, unfortunately it is only 40L which is pretty small in my eyes. I felt I had no other option so I placed the molly in that tank to see if it will calm down to give a rest to the community tank and not harass the 6 x pygmy corydoras in that tank. Anyway 2 weeks later... it's a menace again and is chasing all the pygmys around the tank. Initially it started off well and didn't chase them in fact they all use to swim around with it and it looked like the problem was solved. Now the molly is chasing them so violenty I have concern they're actually going to break the glass on the tank.

I only have one more tank... though it's a Nano tank and that could probably fit the molly in but it wouldn't be able to fit any water in with it so it's clearly not an option. The Pygmys can't be moved because the filter intake on the 125l has slots which are large enough to fit them through. I have no tanks left to put it in, currently it's sitting in the largest net I have in the 40litre tank.

I can't give him/her to any friends because no one wants a proven aggressive fish to go in their tanks, the LFS aren't interested in taking it because they will have to house it on its own or risk it terrorising everything. Currently I have no available space in my house or flat to house another tank specifically for this molly.

It seems like it's in perfectly good health and none of my tanks have ever suffered any diseases or illnesses. I imagine it's energetic nature of chasing other fish shows it's healthy enough to do it.

What can I do? I have ran out of options other than confining it and floating it in a net in my tank which is unfair, it clearly isn't happy about this either.

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

If its male then it needs some ladies (mollies) but then you will get fry.
The bigger fish will keep it in check but it will still chase the smaller fish.

 

[JoshuaA]

Yeh it's male, so put some female mollies in but it's still going to chase the smaller fish and then I'll end up with fry.

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

It may be worth a try. You could give the fry away or simply see if they survive in the main tank.
My male molly does not chase the smaller mollies at all as he is interested in the ladies!
He has actually calmed two male platys down as they were unbelievably active.

Dont confine him.

It is worth trying different methods. Im sure some of the more experienced people on here can offer some more ideas to help.

 

[JoshuaA]

My main tank is somewhat understocked but I'm not really enthusiastic about adding more mollies to calm this male down. If they developed the same aggressive personality I will end up with 3 fish that need to be separated argh.

 

[OldMan47]

I would avoid the prospect of reproducing a "bad actor" molly. That may be genetic and I have seen it fairly often in mollies. It may be somewhat genetic and I would not encourage perpetuating that characteristic.

 

[JoshuaA]

I would avoid the prospect of reproducing a "bad actor" molly. That may be genetic and I have seen it fairly often in mollies. It may be somewhat genetic and I would not encourage perpetuating that characteristic.

Any suggestions what to do? Sometimes it doesn't seem so bad and doesn't terrorise the pygmy s as much ,thought some times it is absolutely rotten. They only move around when the molly has began to rest, my community tank has came back to life now though the molly is out all the shoals are swimming the entire tank rather than just boxed in a section.

This is truly the devil fish.

 

[OldMan47]

An over aggressive molly needs to be removed to another location. It should not be allowed to terrorize the rest of your fish.

 

[Harlequins]

If you put a sponge over the intake of the 125 tank,then the pygmys could move into there,they would love the space

Once you get a rogue fish,its very hard to break their habit,even passing it on to someone else is just passing the buck...

 

[JoshuaA]

Sponge dramatically reduces the flow of the filter as well as when removing the sponge or turning the filter off all the dirt held in the sponge is released back into the water. All the dirt in that sponge accounts for everything that should of been collected in the external canister but gets trapped before hand. Looks awful, I tried it with a fine fish net however large particles of dirt still got trapped on the outside.

Currently I only have 3 tanks, 125l - 40 (molly was moved to out of 125) and now a 8l planted nano. No where else to put this fish, it does appear to have calmed down however it's still too aggressive. Can't relocate as no one wants the aggressive fish and no tanks spare and there are no future plans to obtain any more tanks due to space limitations.

 

[Harlequins]

Hmmm - its a toughie...

I have sponges over the intake on my cory fry tank,i know what you mean,but it doesn't reduce my flow that much and i give it a 'hoover' off when doing the main weekly maintanance.

 

[JoshuaA]

Fortunately a friend whom I spoke to recently phoned me up this morning saying he has a spare tank left since he sold the fry from it. So I dropped it off at his earlier this morning, He seems to have an obsession with livebearers.

The filter in take would be fine if the siphon nozzle had a lattice structure but it only has vertical supports meaning fish can squeeze through easily. I've moved my 2nd dwarf gourami into the 40l tank with my pygmy now, looks to have settled in fine.