Molly Issues

[MLIALOL]

To my surprise the other day I came home to find 2 baby molly in my tank. I say to my surprise because I had not paid attention at all to the molly due to another guppy in the tank being obviously pregnant. I am new to all of this especially with molly fish. It must of been very pregnant when i purchased it around 10 days ago.
It was not very fat at all but I could easily tell they were her babies as they were half black just like her. Anyway I think she is still a bit larger then some of the non pregnant molly I have seen, it has been around 24h since those two and no more fry have appeared. Were the first two it or is she still holding onto more. Here are some badly taken photos.



Her behavior is quite normal, although she is stationary at times, she has been pooing regularly, i noticed a few in the past 3 hours, also alot of the other fish are bugging her. It is possible there were more than 2 babies, but not an excesive amount as the gap between them not being there and my next check was around 1 hr.


Thanks for your time,

 

[Thyra]

She could have had more and they were eaten -either by her or the other fish. It does not look like you have any hiding places in your tank. Mollies are very prolific. Fake plants and imitation grass mats work well. She may very well have more - they don't necessarily have them all at once. How many and what sex are the mollies you have?

 

[OrangeCones]

Isn't that a platy? Not that it changes the advice. If the other fish are following her around a lot, they are likely eating the fry.

 

[MLIALOL]

It may be haha, I only got one of this one coz my gf thought it was pretty, thought it was a molly, not really familiar. I only got one, so it was definitely already preggas, as everything else in the tank is guppy or neon tetra. The babies hide pretty well under the one fake plant i do have in the tank and within the rocks which are basically the same color. As soon as i realized she had given birth to some (the 2 or possibly more as suggested) i put her and them in one of the floating tanks. I had to take her out after a while as she was getting rather agitated, I figgured they may have had a meal of some, from the pictures seen does it suggest more to come, or the end of the 'litter'?

Thanks

 

[lauraf]

In my experience, moving a pregnant female to a floating tank or breeder net causes them undue stress and can lead to miscarriage or even death. I find it better to let the female give birth in the main tank and provide plenty of plants and other hiding places for the fry and for the mother to recuperate.

 

[Andrew Castagna]

That is probably it because my molly fish only has three or four babies each time. Net breeders stress the fish out and causes less fry.