Help. Molly pregnant

Hey. My sailfin molly is pregnant. and im sure any day now thes gonna give birth. Ive set up another tank and ive got a semi big breeding box. What are the signs that she is ready to give birth as i do not want to keep her in the breeding box for no reason or too long

 

Some one mentioned they seem to go darker in color. If she is swollen rather take her out be a bit on the safe side.

 

Her back side will go black. This is the fry's eyes that you seeing. It is sometime very difficult to see as the molly skin is thicker than say a guppy.

With albino you can't see this as the fry's eyes is pink.

Best is to keep her free swimming for as long as possible and just try and monitor her. When she starts dropping the fry put her in the breeding box then.

If you stress her out to early she will drop the fry and they would not have been fully developed.

 

I feel that the breeding box is a small "Guantanamo" for the fish -stress them out aborted eggs...
Rather place her in the other tank with lots of plants plastic or real ones

Signs of birth
Change in behavior
Cramps/contractions
Swims to a secluded place

 

The plastic breeding boxes are too small, the one with the net and frame seems to work very well if you don't have a second tank. They are cheap and give more space for the female.

 

I also hate those little breeding plastic boxes. That's why I made a few V breeder boxes with the space at the bottom just big enough for the fry to fall through.

I put floating plants in there and she can swim around in it. I'd say the top part is about 20cm x 30cm and is ample space for a single female.

 

I saw the v box one but because of work i cant go and build one. so i got me the biggest breeding box i could find at the pet store. its about 20cm long 10 cm wide and 15 cm deep. but thats why i asked coz i dont want to stress her out. but im leaning towards just putting her in the tank and hoping she does not eat all of them

 

That is brilliant then you can have two or 3 like that in a baby / grow out tank.

 

Ive put my 2 week old +- guppie fry in the new tank. but now i want to know. will my guppy fry eat the new sailfin fry. The guppies are about 1 cm big. Or should i ask how big are brand new sailfin fry. then i would be able to tell if they would fit in the guppies mouths

 

The sail fin fry should be fine they will be about the same size as the guppies when they were born.

 

Yes agree with Donny.

The sail fin molly fry is very big if you measure the size to the guppy fry.
There shouldn't be a problem.

 

Sorry. yet another Question. is my Guppy also pregnant?

 

you will have to post a pic but on the female guppy you will see a black spot developing just behind her rib cage.

 

I did post a pic. I think thats the female. it has no colour in it

 

Yip there is about 30+ fry in her if I have to guess :blink1:
She is a nice size.

 

Wow all my fish seem to pregnant lol. their like bunny's

 

Sorry Franna work's firewall blocking the pic, congrats once mollies and guppies start breeding they dont stop even if you take all the males out the females can store enough sperm in them to have two more batches of fry .

 

I'm pretty sure one of my black mollies is pregnant again . But i also have no idea of knowing. they are black all over. already had one litter 2 weeks back. and they all look fat as they are balloon mollies ( i did not know about the Breeding thing at the time i bought them)

 

they will drop fry every 4 weeks i think, it is so you will land up with fry in your big tank ... thats why at 1 stage had a meter tank with just guppies and mollies in, lots of plants and wood and caves for the babies to hide in and let nature take its course with regards to what fry make it and don't.

 

my guppys bread like crazy, unfortunatly alot of the fry didnt make it but i have 7 that are about 5cm long now, the best thing about having guppy fry is watching the colours and markings come out, i have 4 that hav the lyre tail colouring probably meaning they will hav the lyre tail as well but the colours are awesome on them i now have about twenty small ones from the last lot i had and im waiting to see if the females tail pattern will breed true it was a interesting peacock like tail. id put the female in the tank,i did with my last little lady, i found the breeding boxes a waste and actually lost 2 females using one. have lots of plants like air weed, relatively cheap i pay R7 a strand and monitor the female, an interesting titbit is that female guppies release a hormone into the water when they giving birth which stops them from eating their own young which last a few hours so if you have th female in the fry tank say over night it should be safe, i should imagine the mollies do the same. its a bugger trying to catch all the lil babies out of the main tank though lol