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Molly breeding. Some suggestions please.
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Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
Molly breeding. Some suggestions please.
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09 Apr 2007 15:15 #1
by scorphonic (Kieran Crosbie Staunton)
I bought 4 fish from Aquatic village today, three white sailfin mollys and one dalmation molly. These are the last fish I am putting into the tank as I have reached maximum capacity.
I allowed the new fish to get used to the tank with the lights off initially and then I finally switched the lights on to have a closer look at the females I had introduced that day. One is heavily pregnant and has a very dark gravid spot already. The thing is...she's massive and she could pop any day but is there a way to tell exactly when this will happen because I will want to introduce her into the breeding box before that happens.
The male that was in the tank in the shop (the one that I got) is sex mad. He has already spent the last two hours poking around at the other female mollys in the tank, 4 females getting alot of attention from two males. So I now have black mollys breeding with white sailfin mollys and a dalmation molly!!
Is there any store that you know that would take the fry when they are about 2 months old in exchange for some deductions like free fry food or something??
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john gannon (john gannon)
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09 Apr 2007 15:39 #2
by john gannon (john gannon)
hi
i think mollies are like guppies were they can hold onto young untl there ready.i waited till i seen fry and scooped them into a small breeding box,but if u have a heavily planted tank and not too many big fish ive been told u can just let them take there chance.As for getting rid of them im in the same position as yourself
thanks
john
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09 Apr 2007 16:10 #3
by JohnH (John)
It can be fatal to move heavily gravid female livebearer females - and especially Mollies so I would move the female in question sooner rather than later.
As all livebearer females can 'store' sperm from males there's no telling which male did the deed and it could even be one which has already gone to another buyer, but don't worry, if you keep the female with the male you'd like to be the father of subsequent broods then try to keep them together until all the 'stored' sperm has been used up by the female...this will be hard to do as you have several different males by all account. Just leave them at it and see what appears.
As to offloading the youngsters you should look to where you bought the parents from initially, but try further around if they don't want to exchange them for food or whatever.
If there were more time involved to let them grow more you would have been able to bring them to the Auction at the fish show next month, but I would say they'll still be far too small by then...
HTH
John :roll:
Location:
N. Tipp
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.
ITFS member.
It's a long way to Tipperary.
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apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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10 Apr 2007 01:36 #4
by apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
Quick rundown on sailfin mollies.
They require very hard water. gH > 30 and the addition of some salt is also benificial. You can actually keep them with marines and they are great for a brackish tank. Not the community fish they are sold for, really. For the males to develop their big dorsal fin they require large tank in excess of 200 l. Their diet should be rich in plant matter.
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apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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10 Apr 2007 06:29 #5
by apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
one more thing to add. Sailfin mollies are hard to offload unless you grow them to adult size. Nobody wants to buy drap little fish with out that sail like dorsal. Black mollies are easier to off load when they are still quite young. All mollies need plenty of plant matter like algae to eat.
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10 Apr 2007 07:54 #6
by scorphonic (Kieran Crosbie Staunton)
Thanks for the advice everyone. I have just ordered an 80 liter tank so it will be easy enough to add salt to this set up to keep the babies healthy.
I have sourced a pet store that is willing to take the fish from me once they have reached 1cm in length.
Looking forward to getting these fry!!
Unfortunately the tiger barbs eggs were eaten as soon as they were dropped (witnessed it myself) ..at least the 80L can now be used to try my luck with them too.
Who ever said that its an addictive hobby was spot on!!
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apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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11 Apr 2007 04:55 #7
by apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
When breeding fish you should first establish that you will be able to feed your fry. Get infusoria going, have enough microworm on the go and get some artemia in. Make sure the artemia eggs are viable before you start breeding. Some batches can be cr*p. It's all a matter of timing. Infusoria will require about 2 weeks preparation before they are good to harvest, microworm a bit longer and artemia will need 12-48 hours to hatch depending if you shell the eggs first or not.
Mollies are a bit easier to breed since they are relatively big when born and will take crushed flake if nothing else is available.
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11 Apr 2007 08:18 #8
by scorphonic (Kieran Crosbie Staunton)
Can the microworm be bought in some pet stores to get a batch going?
I understand how to make the infusoria...I'll have to start that soon.
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apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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11 Apr 2007 08:33 #9
by apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
Some pet stores sale microworm starter sets. I don't know what's available in your area. They are bred in boxes and fed with porrigde. Instructions usually come with the sets
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Vickers (Vickers)
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11 Apr 2007 10:56 #10
by Vickers (Vickers)
a friend of mine had a molly that looked ready to pop he got a floating nbreeding box after about a week the fish had about 5 babies but after about 3 hours al of them were dead , I guess he should have put them into a seperate tank altogether
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11 Apr 2007 11:59 #11
by scorphonic (Kieran Crosbie Staunton)
I'll have to look around some pet stores then to see if I can get some!!
@ Vickers: I've been reading alot lately that the plastic breeding boxes are not suitable for the molly or live bearing fish of its size. Some reasons are that the lights at the top of the tank get very warm and uncomfortable, If you dont have proper circulation through the box then the fish will die from a rise in ammonia, and the water near the top of the tank is hotter than other regions of the tank because the lights tend to heat it a great deal. Maybe that's why they died...but I'm sure if it was the mollys first time being pregnant then later pregnancies will or should be successful.
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13 Apr 2007 19:11 #12
by scorphonic (Kieran Crosbie Staunton)
Ok well I made a mistake today. Was going through ebay looking for the brine shrimp cysts and instead of clicking a continue button I pressed the commit to buy button.
Ah well...haha...better late than never but I feel that 550g of the stuff is quite alot!!
Can I ask what tricks you have to get alot of the napuli cysts to hatch and do you use a home made set up or did you buy a special hatchery?
Thanks a million!!
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Vickers (Vickers)
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14 Apr 2007 03:59 #13
by Vickers (Vickers)
thanks for that scorphonic I think he is going to set up a small tank for breeding ,
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apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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14 Apr 2007 04:24 #14
by apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
Scorphonic,
550g of artemia is a lot more than most people would reguire in several years.
To answer your question. You can make your own Artemia hatchery set up. All you need is an airpump, a bit of piping, a 1 l bottel and a bit of silicone.
Just google ii and there are plenty of sites showing you how to with diagrams and all.
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14 Apr 2007 06:34 #15
by scorphonic (Kieran Crosbie Staunton)
O thats grand alright, I found a good few websites that described the 2L coke bottle method but they are selling a hatchery that sits in your tank and the free swimming artemia come out of a specific exit from the hatchery...they claim it offers 24/7 feeding...but the coke bottle is much cheaper!
550g is that much eh? Ah well, at least I wont be worrying about it then for the next while!
What about salt, which should I use?
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apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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16 Apr 2007 02:01 #17
by apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
1 tablespoon of salt per litre of water. You need to use iodine free salt. You can buy this from most health shops. Alternatively you could use marine salt. Table salt is not suitable, this contains an anti caking agent, Sodiumhexacyanoferrat (II), which will clog the pores of the cysts.
Unfortunately artemia have a shelf life. Usually they are viable for around 1 year. So get breeding like a mad man. (not you breeding, I meant your fish
)
Buy an artemia sieve and you will be able to just empty your bottle into it.
Decapsulate you artemia eggs for faster and easier hatchng
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17 Apr 2007 08:07 #18
by scorphonic (Kieran Crosbie Staunton)
Ah great...I didn't see your reply to this post!
I got some marine salt yesterday (expensive stuff!!) but I did get 1Kg in all fairness, so its plenty. Did you know that the sodium ferrocyanide (sodium hexacyanoferrate II) is used in explosives!! get purifying your salt...haha.
Do I need to buy more chemicals to decapsulate them or can I just use some chlorine (bleach) to strip the shell off them. This process is outlined in the following link:
edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/FA/FA02300.pdf
Is this suitable?
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apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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17 Apr 2007 08:24 #19
by apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
That will do the trick. Household bleach is fine. I use Tesco's own brand. Just make sure you don't get any with pine smell or whatever other stuff they put into it. You might want to try and decapsulate only a small amount of eggs first and see how that turns out before you go mad on the whole 550g.
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Tropical Aquariums
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Molly breeding. Some suggestions please.
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