I picked up a couple random mollies for my 9 year old's tank when her long time friend, Flippy the betta died. One appeared to be a "standard," non-specialty type molly, and the other was a balloon. Cute, I thought and perfect that they're both females.
The "standard" molly, for lack of a better term, gave birth. Great, I thought.
I do research. Set up new tanks, get them cycling. Raise babies. At about 2 months, I know it's time to separate the boys from girls. I look in preparation to separate them and realize....
... they all look to be females. What's more, they look identical. All kind of plain white, normal looking mollies. I think, huh? No way are they all 12 females? Could it be?
Find out we have Amazon Mollies, the only type of molly that can and does reproduce without the help of a male Amazon molly, mostly because the males in the species cease to exist. They have been extinct for thousands of years, it is thought.
So how does this happen? Well you can do a search for the Amazon molly if you're interested, but the jist is that these females give birth to identical clones of herself, with no DNA input from any male fish. Clearly this could be big trouble with a tank now, of 12 babies.
I can't find any info about value of these fish. I know they can be found in southern Texas and northern Mexico, so I assume they aren't terribly valuable, but does anyone have any ideas? What do I do with them? Is it worth selling them on aquabid or anywhere else? I don't want them to all start reproducing at will, seeing the cute little male mollies in an adjacent tank (ugh - yes the balloon molly was apparently pregnant too).
Help? Thanks in advance.
The "standard" molly, for lack of a better term, gave birth. Great, I thought.
I do research. Set up new tanks, get them cycling. Raise babies. At about 2 months, I know it's time to separate the boys from girls. I look in preparation to separate them and realize....
... they all look to be females. What's more, they look identical. All kind of plain white, normal looking mollies. I think, huh? No way are they all 12 females? Could it be?
Find out we have Amazon Mollies, the only type of molly that can and does reproduce without the help of a male Amazon molly, mostly because the males in the species cease to exist. They have been extinct for thousands of years, it is thought.
So how does this happen? Well you can do a search for the Amazon molly if you're interested, but the jist is that these females give birth to identical clones of herself, with no DNA input from any male fish. Clearly this could be big trouble with a tank now, of 12 babies.
I can't find any info about value of these fish. I know they can be found in southern Texas and northern Mexico, so I assume they aren't terribly valuable, but does anyone have any ideas? What do I do with them? Is it worth selling them on aquabid or anywhere else? I don't want them to all start reproducing at will, seeing the cute little male mollies in an adjacent tank (ugh - yes the balloon molly was apparently pregnant too).
Help? Thanks in advance.
