Lonely molly?

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Nate55

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Jun 4, 2018
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Yesterday morning I picked up 3 absolutely gorgeous lyretail mollies. 2 tangerines and a dalmation. 1 tangerine is female as well as the dalmation. At first, the larger female tangerine would chase the male around; but today they seem to be swimming closely together and getting along fine. But the dalmation kind of does her own thing most of the time, occasionally interacting with the other two. I'm just wondering if it will take a little bit for her to warm up to them or if it's because of the color difference. I just want her to be happy.
 

OrionGirl

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She's fine. No need to worry--mollies aren't a fish that frets if it's the only one of it's kind, and they don't care about the color difference.
 

FreshyFresh

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What size tank?

Chances are high you'll be dealing with baby mollies.
 

Nate55

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What size tank?

Chances are high you'll be dealing with baby mollies.
It's a 10 gallon, with a decent amount of plants. The guy at petco said I should be fine as long as I keep up water changes. I told him that I wanted all females but of course, once I got home I noticed that one was for sure a male. Also, can mollies dislike flake food? The tangerines both go nuts for it but the dalmation just occasionally nips and isn' nearly as aggressive.
 

FreshyFresh

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10g is small for mollies. With proper care, you can make do with 3 in there. Keep an eye on the one that is not eating. Could be stressed or sick from the store.
 

Nate55

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10g is small for mollies. With proper care, you can make do with 3 in there. Keep an eye on the one that is not eating. Could be stressed or sick from the store.
Damn... You couldn't have been more right. As I was napping, I looked at my tank and one of the mollies was chasing what looked like a food pellet.. A pellet that was darting around. My heart dropped and upon examining, I noticed a tiny fry hiding in a plant. The mother has been pretty aggressive toward the smaller male in the tank since I got her, yet she leaves the other female alone. Is this because of her pregnancy? She doesn't let the male come up for food, he gets her scraps that fall to the bottom. It's very sad but since I just invested most of my money into my brand new setup, I can't take care of the fry. Should I just let the grown up mollies clean up the "mess"? I only have seen one fry.
 

Tifftastic

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Even if you had gotten all females you'd still be having babies, as mollies can hold onto sperm for a while and kind of use it at their will. The one that wasn't eating could have been preggo and that's why. They kind of stop eating a few days before so that they don't accidentally eat their babies. It may sound heartless, but I would just let nature take its course, even if you do that you'll still likely be over run by mollies. If you're within the return window it may be worth exchanging for a different species if you'd like to not deal with the care of babies.

Also as what was said above, mollies aren't really schooling species, they more aggregate. There's also just individual differences in sociability of fish and some just don't like to be near others.
 

Nate55

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Thank you all so much for your responses. Today my hand was forced and I brought the beautiful gal back to petco today. She was beginning to go after the dalmation molly and was just overall aggressive. I made sure she wasn't going to be a feeder fish and hopefully she'll go to a nice home. So now I have two pretty docile mollies: a male tangerine and a female dalmation.
 

Tifftastic

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I would keep a close eye on the pair. With the aggressive female gone the male may take up her role. Also, once males discover a female is ready to spawn, they pester them non-stop. Sometimes you get a male that stays chill, but sometimes you wont. I'd say to be prepared to add another just in case, but seems like you've done the right thing so far!
 
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