Baloon Molly Fry!

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DarthPookie

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Jun 20, 2006
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Last night I came home and saw my mystery snail sitting on top of a decoration like he was king of the mountain, so I was going to take a picture. As I was focusing the camera, I was shocked to see a little orange tadpole-like thing swim right past my lens! I almost dropped the camera. I discovered three molly fry (the one I just mentioned, another hiding in a group of plants, and a third that was dead). I grabbed a small plastic container, filled it with tank water, and carefully netted the two little guys. I had no clue my orange baloon molly was even pregnant, as I saw no dark "pregnancy spot" or anything...just the male constantly chasing her around. Chances are she had more than just these three, I can only assume that either the adult mollies or one of my rainbowfish ate the others (there were no fry in my filter media either). I am so happy that I was able to save these two from the jaws of death. The fry are probably about 1/8 inch long. Both are orange, but one has a black spot on the right side. I doubt my male molly is the father though, I've only had the female about 2-3 weeks and from what I understand, molly pregnancy lasts at least a month or two.

Since they don't have the time to wait for me to grow infusoria, I plan on getting Hikari "First Bites" from my LFS today, which should be small enough for them to eat. I also don't have a separate breeding tank, so I figure I will keep changing the water in the container and move the newborns into larger containers as necessary until they are big enough to put back into the general population.

Anyone else have experience with baloon molly fry? Any other suggestions?
 
while you go get the food for them tomarow, get a sponge filter that operates off of an airline and stick it in your bowl. Change your water in your bowl with water from your tank too. Fry that are 1/8 inch small will eat finley crushed flake food too.
 
Well, I have molly fry, 2 of them, but I don't know if they're balloon, or sailfin, or some other type... I had 5, but my mother accidentally boiled 3 of them... They also seem to like freeze-dried brine shrimp... and don't do well with drastic temperature changes.
 
Flying_Diamond said:
Well, I have molly fry, 2 of them, but I don't know if they're balloon, or sailfin, or some other type... I had 5, but my mother accidentally boiled 3 of them... They also seem to like freeze-dried brine shrimp... and don't do well with drastic temperature changes.
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Boiled? Accidentally? How the hell do you boil a fish accidentally? lol

I have two adult baloon mollies, one black male and one orange female, so I am sure they are baloon fry.
 
Haha... I went to a friends house to stay overnight and my mom was taking care of the tank... she noticed the temp was down to 72 degrees, so turned up the heater, but way too much, and didn't check on it later... I came home and the thermometer was maxed out (above 86) and three fry were dead on the bottom. What ever happened to fish floating when they were dead?
 
Flying_Diamond said:
I came home and the thermometer was maxed out (above 86) and three fry were dead on the bottom. What ever happened to fish floating when they were dead?
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They float when they first die due to lost control of the swim bladder, once the swim bladder empties out the body sinks.
 
i have ballon mollies, they have fry about once a month or so. interestingly not all my balloon mollie fry grow up to be balloon mollies! about 1 out of 10 of my balloon mollie fry get fat and "balloon".
 
smbjedi said:
i have ballon mollies, they have fry about once a month or so. interestingly not all my balloon mollie fry grow up to be balloon mollies! about 1 out of 10 of my balloon mollie fry get fat and "balloon".
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That's interesting...well I got the Hikari First Bites, and they gobbled it up...they seem very happy and every so often I look in and they are moving their tiny mouths, probably picking up a bite or two every so often. I noticed one has a big black thing where its eye should be, is this a birth defect, or will this somehow fall off/grow off and the eye is underneath?
 
smbjedi said:
prob a birth defect, or a pirate fish!:)
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Arrr! I was thinking about giving it a pirate name! Hopefully the RIAA won't come after me for having a pirate in the house.

They have gotten slightly larger over the past two days, and upon closer inspection I see that the coloration may actually be that eyelid-type thing at the top of their eyes, and that is colored black but the actual eye is ok. If I look real hard I can see that when the fish looks in around, there is movement in the right eye (where the spot is), so it may be that I can't see the eye past the spot since it is so small. I will have to post pics sometime soon!
 
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