why does my male molly only mate with ONE of the four females?

fIsHy13

fIsHy13

not a troll
Oct 5, 2005
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My male molly (the only male one i have) only mates with one of the four females. Why is this?


BTW, just as an experiment, i put a new female in to see if he would mate with her becuase he seens to mate and stick mating with a new female that is introduced into the tank
 
it's possible that the others just don't want to, and since there is 1 that is ready to mate he'll go for that one. are you sure about the fishes gender?
 
I have that problem with my guppies. He only likes the biggest, brightest of the females.

I have a second male that dosne't seem to have status enough to mate with them, never see him attempt it. He is bigger than the other male too.

Well I do believe all my females are pregnant but he favors one and harrases her much more than the others. He never bothered at all when oen of my other females was alive....I think he harassed her to death or she died giving birth.
 
That does seem strange. Frequently with species in which there is little or no male parental care the males will attempt to mate with as many females as possible. Maybe the other females are ugly? :D
 
you'll never guess what happened...i saw the male mating with another of the females, one which he has completelt ignored before. She is the one, if you have my other thread, that has the big belly. But he still doesn't mate with the other females. Perhaps he only mates with the ones that have lots of fertile eggs in them at the time :)
 
I've got a male molly with two females. He definitely has a preference but as she's getting more plump from her pregnancy, she's less in the mood. When she's not interested, he goes to female #2.

My suggestion is to separate his favorite female in QT for a few days and see what happens.
 
Probably hormones at play. The female he mates with is ready to mate.

With my platies, the male would actively hound one female out of three consistently, and another female now and again. The third female he picked on, and chased away all the time. I suspect that it's because that third female had always been the least healthy.
 
yeh i think they just trust their instints and go with the female that will produce the best fry
 
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