posted
Last week - in fact a week ago tonight - the kids and I went to the petstore and bought a couple fish. Two dalmatian mollies that the clerk said were both female, and two platies that she thought were one of each.
Tonight, Missy says she sees baby fish... and upon investigation I find AT LEAST a half dozen baby dalmatians!! At least two white with black spots, and at least 4 black with white spots. They're moving around so fast that it's hard to count for sure. And the surprising thing is that they're already a good quarter inch long!
So now I guess I need to buy baby fish food, since I don't think they'll be able to eat the regular flakes just yet. I'm debating whether I should try and scoop them out into another tank, too, but I think that if they're this big, they're probably safe from being eaten by the adults.... right?
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote: I'm debating whether I should try and scoop them out into another tank, too, but I think that if they're this big, they're probably safe from being eaten by the adults.... right?
quote:Originally posted by Tante Shvester: It's a miracle!
Heather just had a thought... whatever are we going to do when these 6 (or however many there are) grow up?? How many fish can comfortably live in a 5 gallon tank?
And these babies are fast little buggers... between their speed and the slightly curved walls of the tank, I can't even manage to net them out to the little isolation tank. So I guess they have to stay there.
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posted
I had this virgin birth thing happen once. We had a girl hamster and a boy hamster, and we kept them totally separate. Yet somehow one day - hamster babies! Milagre!
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote: Heather just had a thought... whatever are we going to do when these 6 (or however many there are) grow up?? How many fish can comfortably live in a 5 gallon tank?
quote: The Dalmatian Molly requires a tank of at least 30-gallons densely planted with plenty of strong plants such as Java fern, Sagittaria, Vallisneria, and Anubias
Perhaps it would be a good idea to invest in a bigger tank.
Also,
quote: It may pursue its young and the young of other fish.
Once they get older, you might also want to separate the fish by gender to avoid any more miracles. Good Luck!
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
We acquired four gerbils that were supposed to be all male, but the day before my friend brought them (from the previous owner), one of the "boys" gave birth to 2 pups. Four weeks later, despite being separated from the rest of the boys since the night of the first birth, Mama gave birth to five more pups. We had a grand total of 11 for awhile, but we're down to seven now. I think it's easier to check genders on gerbils than fish, though, unless it's totally obvious like for bettas.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Apparently tail shape is the way to tell which are which. I'm assuming that Momma Molly (I don't know whether it was Ebony or Ivory, although Heather thinks Ivory looked bigger than Ebony) was already pregnant when we brought them home.
We think that the platies may be one of each, so we may end up with more babies at some point.
Thirty gallons? Yikes, I'll need to get a sturdier cabinet for a new tank!
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posted
Our black mollies had babies when I was a kid. They get eaten. It's the circle of life.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Boon
unregistered
posted
Mollies and platies are livebearers, which means the males have a modified anal fin called a gonopodium. In short, a female's rear bottom fin will spread out like a fan, but a male's will be held close to his body and point straight back.
If you provide plenty of places for the babies to hide, some or most will survive to adolescence.
The general rule of thumb is to provide 1 gallon of water for each inch of fish you have. If you do more frequent water changes and have very good filtration, you can increase that somewhat.
aquariumfish.net has a lot of good information about common aquarium fishes.
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I just spent some time reading on the Animal Planet link that Amanecer posted. I need plants - lots andlots of plants - and algae too...? Blech, I hate algae in my tanks!
Fortunately, both breeds seem to have much the same needs (which might explain why they were in the same tank in the store LOL). Wow, and here I thought I was doing this the cheap way.
The babies do seem to have staked out a cave-type "rock" that came with the tank set-up, and the grown-ups are pretty much staying away. Come to think of it, Ivory did spend a lot of time in that "rock" a few days ago, and that had been Blackie's favorite spot (Blackie is the only platy left from our prior batch, we think it's male.
I'll go troll on your site, too, Boon and see what I can find out there as well.
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posted
I don't know about inside aquarium fish much, but in general the fish population keeps itself in control -- meaning if there get to be too many for an area -- they will eat the babies to make it a sustainable level of population.
At least that's how it works with the goldfish we keep in the horse tank. We had two or three at first, they grew quite a bit, then had two or three hundred babies (its a large tank), and they "whittled" them down (probably with some help of other predators) to a level number of 80 or so that live there now, and they haven't had any new babies. (that I have seen, at least)
posted
THAT's a relief, Farmgirl! I was envisioning myself having an undulating mass of black and white spots that choked out all the water and plants and my poor little platies... LOL
(well, okay, not really, that would definitely be weird)
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posted
Well, we lost one white. Missy was a bit upset but not as much as when the first set of dals passed away back in March. Looks like it got stuck in the base rocks, no obvious indication of infanticide. Three of the black babies have gotten more daring and are swimming around near the top of the tank. #4 black and the remaining white are staying close to the cave rock. I'm trying to figure out how to do my routine gravel mixup to shake out food, etc. for cleaning without trapping a baby (mostly cause I don't want it decomposing in there until the next cleaning).
And in related news, my parents have a This End Up wood microwave cart that they no longer use, tehy're going to give that to me for the larger tank's stand. They don't have any tanks or supplies left from when we were all living at home, though, so I'll still have to get that stuff. I'll post a request on Freecycle to see if I can get away with not having to pay anything. I'll keep the 5 gal set up and ready as a nursery tank for when someone appears to be gravid again (since Boon's link made it sound like female mollies are always pregnant...) I figure it'll be easier to maintain two tanks than to set up and tear down the nursery on a regular basis.
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posted
Good grief, I think she's still spitting them out!! I decided to scoop out as many as I could so I could at least do a water swap... at the moment I have 3 white and 6 black in the isolation tank. I keep finding more as I'm scooping out water. And I swear I saw a CLEAR one still in the 5 gal that was barely more than a speck with a tail. Wasn't able to grab that one and can't find it again.
Yeeeehaaaa!!! As one of my friends said in IM, "are you running a fish whorehouse or what?"
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Boon
unregistered
posted
Bulb turkey basters work great for sucking up fry.
I keep a very minimal amount of rock in my tank, and found that when I did a gravel vac, the fry would get sucked up the tube. It was a simple matter to put a net breeding trap in the collection bucket to isolate the babies.
Right now, I only have platy fry...and most of them have reached about adolescent size already. I bought one of these right after they were born and stuck it to the bottom of the tank for them to hide in. Worked wonderfully; I think almost all of them survived.
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The lady I petsat for this summer had a tank (12 gallons I think) with quite a few fish (I don't know fishbreeds) but one day there were more, some very tiny, some a bit bigger. When she got home she said she gets babies all the time from two different breeds, and only keeps one male (you can tell the difference by the tailfin) of each breed then sells them to our local nice petstore.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Velly intellestink. I may have to get me one of those.
I'm thinking that I may go with no rock iwth the larger tank. Depends on if I need it for plant anchors. The two sites that were posted said that it really wasn't necessary. I remember when I was a kid we had a monstrous charcoal filter in the corner and then another filter that was actually under the rock that seemed to be filled with quilt batting. Never did understand the point of that one since it didn't seem to be attached to anything, and the pet store had told me I didn't need it.
The tank we have now came with a sort of lining with slits cut in it, and the air tube fits into a corner of that with a bubbler stone on the end. But that didn't seem to put out much air so I got a wand style bubbler that lays across the bottom of the tank with the rock built up around it.
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Boon
unregistered
posted
They don't really need the bubbles, and most undergravel filters (like what you described) don't do much. I have a 55 gallon tank with a Marineland Penguin 330. It's a hang-on-back (HOB) filter that sucks water from the bottom of the tank up through a big tube, filters it, and dumps it back in the tank.
95% or more of the oxygen/co2 transfer in the water happens at the surface.
The biggest thing a healthy aquarium should have is a good, balanced, active bacteria colony. Ammonia (produced as fish excrement and by decomposing fish food)is very harmful to the fish. There are bacteria that break down ammonia into nitrates, which are also harmful to the fishes. There are also bacteria that break the nitrates down into nitrites, which are much less harmful, but must still be removed from the tank.
Doing a partial water change (PWC) once or twice a week will remove part of these nitrites and add minerals that your fish need and will have used up from your water. I usually change about 20-30% once a week or so.
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Boon
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Oh, and for anchoring plants and stuff, I use aquarium silicone to attach suction cups to the bottom of plastic plants as stick them to the bottom of the tank. Live plants grow in 1/2 pint jelly jars filled with gravel. There's just enough rock in my tank to hide the suction cups and cover the bottom of the glass.
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Above comment made in jest, before anyone becomes offended and overwhelms us all with the politics of fish and fish like relationships.
Posts: 31 | Registered: Jun 2005
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{writing up shopping list for new tank requirements} {pointedly ignoring troll who needs to go back to his videogame threads}
But they LIKE the bubbles! It's really kind of funny to see them all swimming right over the wand, even the babies were doing it.
What do you mean about the live plants in jelly jars? Do you put the jars into the tank or are you growing your plants outside of the water until they're ready to transfer in?
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posted
I wouldn't worry newbie, it usually takes a little more than that to offend us (most of the time).
You only allowed 17 minutes between posts to assume that you ticked someone off. They just probably went to bed. It's after 11:30 for many of them.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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its after 1:30 for me, but if i can make the commitment to stay up late and offend them, they should have the decency to stay and be offended.
Posts: 31 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Boon
unregistered
posted
Have you seen those packages of aquarium plant bulbs at Wal-mart? They're like $1.97 for a half dozen or so. I throw the bulbs in the tank and wait for them to sprout, then fill the jar with gravel, up to almost the top, put it in the tank, and root the bulb in it. Very cheap potted plants for my fishies.
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