Female Molly - been gravid too long

[undertow]

She is a cremesickle molly, and is in a 25g planted tank. She has appeared gravid for about FOUR months!! The other mollies are constantly nipping her bum. I suspect they expect the babies to 'pop' out any second. The fish is EXTREMELY GRAVID! I wonder what could be taking so long? It seems this may eventually kill her cause she is so fat...

Any feedback/tips/suggestions will be appreciated.

[mollie]

Firstly, what are some of the other specs of your tank? Ammonia, nitrites etc. Also what temp do you keep the tank at? Last one (for me anyway) do you add salt? Oops, another question, have the other mollies been having their babies on a regular basis, if so, every how often?

Is she a larger mollie, if so, is it possible that she actually is having fry, and being larger, it isn't noticed as much. I once had a female sailfin mollie like this, it got to the stage she was harassing the other fish so I moved into the community where 2 days later she decided to give the clown loaches and angels some live food for dinner.

[Darkangel]

What other fish undertow? Are you sure they are not eating the fry before you see them?

[undertow]

I had three adult black mollies that died, and there are three babies left from that batch that are getting big. Besides that, there's 2 other cremesicle mollies,3 black-neon tetras,3 head/taillight tetras,and 4 redeye tetras.


The tanks parameters are-
Ph-7.2 Amm-0ppm Nitrite-0ppm. And I do add salt to the water. Temp.is kept at 78-80...I had her isolated in a 10g for about a month and a half before moving her back into the comm. tank. Her belly is very swollen... They are fed Spirulina,Tetra rich mix(granules and flakes),frz.dried tubifex worms and frz. bloodworms....With these mollies, the males are vibrant orange while the females tend to
be a creamy white in color. Another strange thing is that one of the males appears to be losing his color and almost totally looks like a female. Other then that he seems perfectly fine. Thanks for the help!

All other fish are thriving in there planted pad....

[undertow]

Im cycling my 10g right now, and considering putting the 'way over-due'momma back in it. Can you guys think of anything that I can do to aid her in having the babies? She's so fat that she does a 'swim-waddle'! I don't know if she can get any plumper!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!! MAY ALL YOUR FUTURE FISH ENDEAVOURS BE FRUITFULL AND REWARDING!! :D

[Skippy]

Have you added any aquarium salt to the tank?

I have found that sometimes raising the salinity of the water slightly can induce labor in gravid mollies. (I had one once who dropped out over 20 fry when put from her regular tank into one with about 1 tbls/5gallons worth of salt in it.)

[undertow]

Thanks for the tip Skippy. I do add salt to the water, but I will start adding 1tbspn/5g and see what happens from there. Im going to put her back in my 10g as soon as it finishes cycling. On the average, how long do most livebearers stay gravid??

[Skippy]

Most of my mollies i've had go for about a month.

You can verify that salt amount on the side of any actual aquarium salt package. Don't add normal table salt that has iodine in it :) I had a friend do that once, not good.

[undertow]

hehe. I remember way back when I thought they where the same thing! I use Aqua Pharm's Salt. Have you seen Seachem's Livebearer Salt? Saw it at big al's, but there wasn't a description of it. I wonder how much better its supposed to be in comparison to reg aquarium salt...

[Faramir]

The "iodised table salt is dangerous for fish" myth still doing the rounds?

[Shakes head]

http://aquascienceresearch.com/APInfo/Salt.htm


It's a common enough myth, found throughout the internet, but a myth it remains - it doesn't stand up to common sense or investigation. I understand that table salt contains something like 1 part in 20,000 potassium iodide. Exactly how toxic do you imagine iodine is?

[Shibbies]

I have a perpetually pregnant platy. She's been big and fat almost the entire time we've had her...and even though she's popping them out on a regular basis...she's still pretty much the same size. I guess the males like to keep her that way ;)