Who Is The Dad?

[BeckyCats]

Hello all! A friend got 2 free mollies from someone she knows. Turns out one is a beautiful male sailfin molly and the other is a female. Both have orange bodies with black speckles, and black tails and fins. Shortly after arriving, the female had about a dozen predominantly black fry. She has since had a second batch of fry who are also predominantly black (they have varying degrees of white or clear spots in their fins). Although the orange male has definitely been seen mating with the female, could it be possible that the babies are not his but instead belong to a different (possible black) molly? Can a female store more than one male's genetic material? Would a more recent mating take precedence over previously stored material, or do the first male's genes get the preference? Or is it more common for the offspring of the orange and black mollies to come out mostly black?

Thank you!

 

[Akasha72]

in short 'Yes'. Live bearing fish (guppies, mollies and platies) can store sperm for up to 6 months. They can also mate with several males in that time too. If your friend wants babies that look like the current male and female then he/she will have to wait a minimum of 6 months.
 
It worth noting that your friend really needs to add another 2 females is he/she has space otherwise the male will harress the female to death. His attentions need to be spread over 2-3 females

 

[BeckyCats]

Thank you, Akasha. Actually, her tank got overrun with fish (she had male and female platys in there too), so she decided to keep the handsome male sailfin, one male platy, and get some egg layers to mix things up. She rehomed the others. I took the female molly. This is my first foray into fish keeping and I did do a lot of research on mollies before I brought her home, so I know I can expect to end up with many more months of babies, but I was curious about why she hasn't had any orange ones yet. Thank you again for your reply.

 

[Akasha72]

no problem, happy to help

 

[OldMan47]

I need to correct Okasha72. Only the poecilliids commonly can carry sperm packets for up to 6 months but that does include most of the more common livebearers. I breed goodeids and they are one breeding to one fry drop. They do not store fertile eggs or sperm packets. Another variation happens among the really small fish like heterandria formosa, these tiny guys.

A pygmy cory following an adult Heterandria

Because the female is so small at only a couple of cm long, she will drop fry every few days so that she never needs to carry more than 3 or 4 fully developed fry at a time. It is called superfetation if you want to look it up.

 

[BeckyCats]

That is interesting. Thank you, OldMan47!

 

[BeckyCats]

So, just in case anyone ever looks at this topic for their own fish situation, the molly mom had a third batch of fry and more of them look like the orange and black male that was seen mating with her most recently. The brood appears to be mixed though because there were some that were all black, some that were white (they turn orange after a month or so) and a few that are half black, half white.
 
I'm still wondering if all-black is the dominant trait and even if both parents are other colors, some fry can come out all black.

 

[Akasha72]

fish genetics can be a really complicated thing. I've been reading about angelfish genetics on another forum and it can get really complicated. I have a pair of smokey blushing angels, to get smokey blushing you need to cross a chocolate angel with a blushing and so 50% of the fry would be smokey blushing like the parents but 25% could be blushing and the other 25% could be chocolate. Now imagine what would happen if my female was smokey blushing and she mated with a Koi for example. Some would be smokey blushing, some would be chocolate, some would be blushing but others would be what ever it takes to get a koi!! You need a degree in genetics to work it all out. I can't imagine it's any different with your mollies or any other fish that has developed it's colours through a long line of breeding

 

[Paradise3]

I'd just like to add something into this- Platies(at least) can carry sperm for more than 6 months

This I have experienced myself with my own platies.

I have a tank of all females, I only ever had one male. I separated him late April/early May 2015 so the tank has been all female since then. The last newborn babies I found were born about two months ago. I haven't seen any since, which tells me my females have finally cycled out, but around about 7/8 months after separating my only male they were still producing fry. I have double, triple, quadruple checked all platies in the tank- All females. Whether this is my water or the males just get eaten by the other fish, I don't know. But they are all female They are obviously now old enough and big enough to tell.
I don't have many platies as I have a range of other fish in there that will eat the babies, so only a few generally survive.

 

[Akasha72]

water parameters do seem to play a part in the sex of fry. I have very soft water and I get a lot of males 

 

[Baccus]

The mostly black babies could be from residual sperm being stored by the female and graudally used up, it could also come from both parents genetics of colouration that is hidden as recessive genes. In other words just because the parents look a certain way without knowing their full genetic history there is no sure fire way of ensuring that all/ any offspring will look like them. Both parents may infact be carrying more black recessive genes which when combined instead of being weak genes that are not likely to make the fish show the colouration actually get stronger.
 
I not only keep fish but also birds and I have a normal king quail male (wild colouration) and a silver (mutation) hen, these birds will often throw a mix of chicks that either look silver or wild type but they all still carry the silver mutation, so future offspring depending on what they are bred with will determine if more wild types are born or more silvers.
 
And just to show how long a recessive gene can linger in a population. In a guppy breeding program we have been doing for over 8 years we are still getting males with blue bodies and red tails and the occasional female with no colouration. For the entire time of the breeding program we have ruthlessly been removing any non coloured females and any males (and females) that have red in their tails since the goal of the project has been to develop a purely blue guppy. Most of the females that we have been breeding have nearly all black bodies with some females even having blue on their tails and dorsal fin. Some females still crop up with red mixed in with their blue tails and dorsal fins and these get removed from the breeding program before they can inturn drop more of their wrong coloured offspring.
 
And just to make things more interesting not only can pH/ gH affect the sex of live bearers but I find also temperature can have a noticeable effect on the resulting sexes.

 

[BeckyCats]

It is truly fascinating. I did not know that water parameters can affect whether they are male or female. My water is on the soft side with a low pH (<6.5). Does this favor male or female (or is it drastic enough to make a difference)? The female has been separated from all males (not including any that haven't developed yet from the fry). I am still on the fence about whether to rehome her. I know they like harder water with a higher pH but I have been getting conflicting advice on how hardy mollies are in less than ideal parameters. My son is particularly upset about the idea of giving her away but obviously I have to do what is best for the fish, ultimately. She seems to be doing very well and all of the babies do well too if they survive their mother's midnight munchies.
 
What is frustrating to me about this is that I thought I did good research on this fish's needs before I brought her home, but I did not understand the pH / gH thing. It just didn't click in my head about the differences in water. I "got" the cycle part. I "got" the good bacteria part. I definitely "got" the ammonia = bad, part. I just did not "get" that some water is soft and some is hard and mollies like hard water. Sigh. If I give her away, this would be the third time she's had to move. I hate to do that to her. But I guess it isn't doing her any favors to slowly kill her with the wrong water either. But some people say that if she is still having babies, that she can't be doing too poorly, because if her health were bad, she would miscarry the fry. What do you guys think? I may just rehome her to a lady I know that has other mollies and better water, but again, my son will be upset about it.

 

[Baccus]

Personally I hate mucking about adjusting the pH and or gH of water since once you start its an on going drama that pretty much requires constant tweeking thanks to evaporation and water changes.  However if your happy to add elements to the water in order to change the pH/ gH and if you're  currently keeping other fish that also like harder water then you could invest in some "live bearer salts".
If your molly is not breaking out in weird diseases that usually only take hold in a stressed fish then I would suggest that she is not unduly concerned about the actual gH and pH of your water. I have known mollies that lived in only rainwater and all they had to eat was algae and any insects that fell or bred in the water. What may have made the water a little harder for the Mollies was the fact that they where living in an old concrete water tank that would have been releasing salts into the water
Keep in mind too that many fish species have been kept and bred in captivity for so long in water that is vastly different to the water parameters that their forefathers where used to, that without careful acclimatisation if you tried putting modern fish of that species in the old type water they would die rather quickly.

 

[BeckyCats]

Paradise: My molly is also working off a repository as it were. There has been no male contact for MONTHS and she has had two batches of fry so far. I'm expecting more. Hoping against hope that she's done, but I won't be surprised if she has more. And more!
 
Akasha: I wonder if I will find that I get more male fry than female since I also have softer water, like you. I won't find out with the Christmas batch since I only kept one and gave the other five to a new home. If "Comet" as we've named it, turns into a boy, he will have to be rehomed also, because I am NOT in the business of molly production. Ha ha!
 
Baccus: I so agree about changing water parameters. I personally do not feel capable of managing it in a stable way, so I would rather not even attempt it. I've only had a 10 gallon tank for a few months, so I am still quite new to this whole fish keeping thing. I do however, want to provide a safe, healthy home for the little fish, so if she is happy here, she is welcome to stay, but if she is slowly, secretly getting sick, I would rather just find her a new home. I will relocate her to the 55 gallon when I get it set it up, if I keep her. I wonder if she will cause problems for the little tiny <1" fish that I was planning on getting schools of. She's fairly pushy, but maybe that's because she's in a too-small tank (10 gallons). Perhaps I should move this question over to it's own thread?

 

[Akasha72]

Hi, sorry I missed your replies yesterday. I have soft water and as I said - I get a lot of male fry. From memory we've spoken about this before on the forum and there was another member who had hard water and they got a lot of females. At the moment I've not read any research to clarify that water types can affect fry sex so what we are experiencing may or may not be coincidental.
 
As you have soft water too it would be good to know what sex your fry turn out to be. If you have mostly male then that may point to it not being coincidental. All you can do now is wait and watch to see what happens