are mollys hermaphroditic?

D

Debs.F

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Mar 23, 2012
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Debs
I had a male and a female dalmation mollys,the male died... about 2 weeks later my son saw 3 fry just 3 so im guessing the others became fish food we raced to get a floating incubation tank the fry are now 6 weeks old and were released today into main tank..however 3 weeks ago we found 9 more newly born molly fry they are in an incubation tank,,how can this be when the male died before her first pregancy the first fry i can understand that she must have been pregnant when he died..but how can the second pregnancy be explained?
ps. she is the only adult molly in the tank..the others are 2 guppys and 2 sucker fish but the fry are definately mollys
 
ah so she kept the sperm had the ones she was already pregnant with then fertilized the second eggs with the sperm she held..clever stuff thanks so much for the reply its been really quizzing me..she was always guarding the 2 incubation containers (floating ones)now the older babies are in the main tank shes guarding them from the other fish(even tho they are 6 weeks old now and too big for the other fish to eat)then shes checking the incubation tank shes great mother :)
 
Livebearers can usually spit out 3 batches of fry from sperm they're holding. Also if you have male guppies they can breed with mollies too.
 
oh... well there was 25 days between the first and second batch of fry shes had so should i put her in the now spare incubation tank next week? incase she has a 3rd? its so hard to tell if shes pregnant as shes a big lady all the time..(not fat of course shes big boned ;))the last batch she had was her second batch and they are now 19 days old..they look like full molly fry they are dalmation mollys and the first batch she had are getting their black dalmation spots now
im new to tropical fish keeping i kept cold water fish all my life very successfull i had a 5ft tank then moved abroad for a year and my cousin bought my tank..i bought these for my son but its re-kindled my passion for fish keeping.. more tricky than cold water fish keeping tho i have to say. so the advice here is invaluable to me..thanks so much for your replies guys :)
 
Gestation period is about 30 days, usually if she's near ready to give birth you can see a dark spot toward the back of her belly toward the tail. I usually let mine give birth in the tank, but I have plants, rocks and driftwood for hiding and some survive, if you save them all soon your going to be overpopulated with them, she may have another batch to go after this one and by then the first batch is going to be close to breeding age, and then you have the possibility of muppy hybrids.
 
i know ur right were keeping the 3 babies that were released into the tank today (first batch) then plan is when the second batch are too big to fit in the adults mouths to sell them real cheap for £2 each is all, put an advert in the local store and buy an angel fish with the money or towards the price of one(just one tho dont want them breeding too) and do same if she does have a third batch..also with the snails we have loads of baby snails too they will take over if i dont find homes for them all...i will do as u advise and keep an eye out for a black spot on her belly..and from now on i will only buy one of each new species
thanks so much
 
If you can sell and rehome them thats good, they're hard to get rid of here stores frequently sell them for less then £1 over here.
 
Excuzzeme
If that's true What is a a guaranteed method of determining sex at birth?? Have raised livebearers for many years
and think I've seen examples of both many times . have never been able to arrive at 100 percent sex ID ,
Oddest was a 1/8 inch fry purchased with some black neon tetras . Took a month for the "guppy to get large enough to identify. She gave birth to at least 5 See no other possible explanation. many types of fish change sex .Why not livebearers?? gary
 
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