View Full Version : lyretail molly
EBoxell9584
09-19-2003, 1:38 PM
I have a black sailfin lyretail molly (male) and he will not breed with a regular molly and he will not breed with a sailfin...any suggestions on how to get him to breed with one or the other? He is in a tank with 4 female mollies and 1 male molly. If you have suggestions please let me know!
Are you sure it's a male? I'm not suggesting you don't know, but I find it odd that he won't breed.
My males were constantly trying to breed, even if the female was already pregnant!
Could be the other male isn't letting him breed either. We had one male that was alway chasing the others away when ever they got close to one of the females.
We had three male sailfins, lyretailed....
and 7 females....all different colors. Black, silver and orange.
The white male dominated the tank.
EBoxell9584
09-19-2003, 2:22 PM
Yeah...we are sure it's a male. He's got all the right parts. I am not sure if the other male just isn't letting him breed or if he is just not interested because the orange male only breeds with teh orange female. We had to put our other females in with our sailfin molly tank and have the male sailfins breed with teh regular females. I was just thinking that it might be the fins. I really have no idea why he won't breed. The sailfins went nuts over teh females when we put them in there.
Our silver one didn't discriminate at all when it came to the females. He went after which ever one he could get.
aquariaddictus
09-21-2003, 12:47 PM
Just curious why you want him to mate with a different type of molly.
I noticed that you are planning on selling mollies. If you let them all breed indiscriminately with each other, you may very well end up with a tank of dull 'green', or assorted spotted mollies; I did. While they were pretty outside in the pond when the sun hit them, they would have been more useful as feeders once brought indoors.
Also, keep in mind that a female retains enough sperm from one mating for five broods, so that is why she can be 'perpetually pregnant' even in the absence of a male.
hth
judy
EBoxell9584
09-22-2003, 10:47 PM
We dont have a female lyretail sailfin molly...hes the only one like that. We keep all the sailfins together and all teh regular ones together and we just let the lyretail sailfin in with the regular mollies. And he hasn't bred with any of them so Im not too worried. Also, one of my regular females had her fry today!!!! They are cute!
tricksterpup
09-23-2003, 5:35 PM
Well the odds are he is mating when no one is looking. Males will mate but will try to cool and calm about it when the dominate male is not watching.
I also keep a large varity of mollies together and I do have one large sailfin who runs the tank.
jim
EBoxell9584
09-24-2003, 5:26 PM
Yeah that's what I'm guessing too....I'm not too worried about it. Im sure hes mating with one of them in ther.