My first baby Mollies

[Brian P]

Turns out my 4 mollies are not males after all.  I knew my two black mollies were male due to their pointed gonopodia's.  My two Dalmation mollies don't have pointed gonopodia's but appear to have more rounded anal fins. One is definitely bigger and rounder, so I had suspected she was a she, but has been in the tank for almost 4 months and no babies.  

I just noticed babies in the tank a tonight.  They are very cute. 

I changed two things recently.  First was giving my fish (4 mollies and 20 neon tetras) live baby brine shrimp once or twice a week.  The second was putting some floating plants in the tank.  

The babies are hiding in the floating plants.   I have not gotten a count yet, but there are more than seven. 

I crushed some flake food and they ate it, so that's good.  I fired up the BBS maker so I can feed them tomorrow night.  

Since I had no plans to have babies, I will just let nature take it's course.  If they make it and grow up, I will have to find homes for the little ones. 

Any advice would be appreciated.

What an amazing day. 

[Ali]

Congrats!

I have the same setup. I love my mollies 😄  They're so cool to watch from the very beginning of life!

I have been trying to let the tank run on "natural selection" mode. One thing I've found is that, contrary to what most people advise you to do for fry, you don't want to feed a ton. Feeding a ton is a great way to raise lots of healthy babies. If that's not your goal, then don't feed a bunch. Mollies like to pick at algae anyway, so don't worry about starving them. I didn't necessarily want babies either, so I've been trying to just let the tank maintain carrying capacity. 

It's hard though. It's very easy to be over-run by growing babies. My best advice is to ask your LFS if they can take your babies. There's a TON of info out there about selling your babies and working to make profit. Since that isn't really my goal, I just donate my babies to my LFS. 

[Brian P]

Thank you for the advice.  I don't really have an LFS, so I will have to find some other way to "give them away".  My wife seems to be able to sell/give away anything on FB.  The tank is 29g and can hold a few, but not this many more.  I am pretty sure some if not all are Dalmations, they have tiny little spots.

[EmeralDQueen]

I have a baby fry Mollie that came in a bag of fish that I bought some days ago, he is so cute orange I think with a little black. I mainly have guppies but I like the idea of having some mollies, soon I will get some and place them in a separate tank maybe.

Nice pic of the babies, congrats!!!