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Is my Baby Pregnant? (Picture)

12K views 17 replies 7 participants last post by  Emphasy 
#1 ·
Is this little one pregnant? The mother (marble molly) gave birth to these little guys quite a long time ago. She (the baby) is probably 1.5'' with some gold dust in her. *yay*

I recently noticed that she is VERY plump. Is she pregnant? Shew looks too tiny to carry 20+ babies, but her tummie is sooo big!!! Here are some pics, I did the best I could. In some of the pics, there is a small male of the same species. It is her brother. That could be the father, or another full grown black molly I have. I have larger versions of these pics in necessary.

By the way, its nice to be apart for the FishForum community. Hello from Kansas!

















8)
 
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#3 ·
Yes, there are several other male mollies in the tank. One full grown and 2 or 3 sibblings.

I guess she could have eaten too much, but she always looks like that.

Fuzz said:
Hello qwertmonkey, I'm no expert but your fish could be overfed or pregnant.

I would think she is pregnant is their is another male in the tank. She certanially is big!
 
#5 ·
Any idea how far along she is? I never know when to move her to the breeding box/net thing. I have the mesh net in a plastic frame. The babies are going to be BEAUTIFUL. Mostly black, some white, and gold flake!!!

juliewiegand said:
im no expert but have only recently had a pregnant molly and i would say that yours looks pregnant. my molly was only small (about 1.5") as well and i have just rescued the 29 babies today so i dont think itll matter that shes small

good luck
 
#6 ·
There's no need to move the molly. They are far too prolific. As for the outcome of the fry, it depends on the males that she had encountered. This will include males in the pet shop where you bought her.
 
#7 ·
I'm not too sure....I had several mollies, male and female, and they never bread. After 6 months, I just gave up and bought a pregnant one at the store. I can NOT get them to reproduce!!! :shock:

Blue said:
There's no need to move the molly. They are far too prolific. As for the outcome of the fry, it depends on the males that she had encountered. This will include males in the pet shop where you bought her.
 
#9 ·
i had a breeding unit for mine. i put her in it and she looked stressed and unhappy fo after about 5 minutes i couldnt bear it anymore and let her out. she had her babies 2 days later. i just bought more plants (artificial as my catfish will uproot anything else i put in there) and i rescued 29 of them like i said earlier so if there are plenty of placxes to hide i reckon theyll be fine. this is my first batch of fry and i was so amazed at the speed of them. its like watching a film with loads of skipped frames. one minute they are in one place and then all of a sudden somewhere else with no transition that is visible to the naked eye - theryre THAT fast!!! so i wouldnt worry about them getting eaten. she looks pretty far on. i posted a thread earlier about how to tell when theyre ready to give birth and i was told that they start looking quite square at the back and that there seems to be a little "spike" coming form them where the babies come out and both of these turned out to be true so just keep your eye out for that

good luck
 
#11 ·
Looking at those pictures, especially the bottom one, her belly is all square/flat on the bottom instead of round which is exactly how my molly looked RIGHT before she gave birth, so she is probably pregnant and close to giving birth. But not seeing her beforehand it would be hard to tell. That is a beautiful fish by the way!!!
 
#12 ·
lol that last angle really shows proof that some angles aren't too flattering.

Honey, does this angle make me look fat? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Well, its 10 PM here and she's showing no signs of labor. I'll wait until the morning. I do have about 6 plants and a few other decorations, so I think they can hide.

Again, thanks everyone for the help!!! If I do have a few extras, I would be more than willing to share a few. :wink: I hate to ship them though....a little inhumane... :cry:

If you're local, consider it a done deal!
 
#13 ·
Still no sign of labor... :cry: :cry: :cry:

But the male is STILL inseminating her every second of the day. Something weird shes doing though. Shes hanging out around the heater and eating stuff off of it. Also, every once in a while, she'll rub her side up against a hard object. Like she scratching.

What up?
 
#14 ·
thats odd. my male lost interest in alice when she was heavily pregnant and now that she has had her babies hes interested again. if shes hanging about the heater it could be that shes a bit restless if shes close to birth. it seems to be one extreme or the other when theyre ready to give birth - either they swim up and down like mad or they hang about one area and keep quite still
 
#15 ·
AHHHH Its soo frusturating! I wish there was a constant sign that would identify labor had begun. She's still eaiting, so I figured I might have a while....But yeah, the male is still doin his thing and its buggin' the hell out of the shela. :?:

juliewiegand said:
thats odd. my male lost interest in alice when she was heavily pregnant and now that she has had her babies hes interested again. if shes hanging about the heater it could be that shes a bit restless if shes close to birth. it seems to be one extreme or the other when theyre ready to give birth - either they swim up and down like mad or they hang about one area and keep quite still
 
#16 ·
Sry, shela should be sheila

qwertmonkey said:
AHHHH Its soo frusturating! I wish there was a constant sign that would identify labor had begun. She's still eaiting, so I figured I might have a while....But yeah, the male is still doin his thing and its buggin' the hell out of the shela. :?:

juliewiegand said:
thats odd. my male lost interest in alice when she was heavily pregnant and now that she has had her babies hes interested again. if shes hanging about the heater it could be that shes a bit restless if shes close to birth. it seems to be one extreme or the other when theyre ready to give birth - either they swim up and down like mad or they hang about one area and keep quite still
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#18 ·
???

Okay, so I'm going to the pet store with my mom today. I'm buying three mollies. I want a female dalmation, a female black, and a male dalmation. I'm looking for them to breed. I've never done this before, and just got my tank set up yesterday. If they do reproduce, are plastic plants going to be a good enough hiding place for the fry, or will the male just bulldoze through them and eat them? If I can find a floating plant, or just let a plastic plant set on the top of the water on it's side, will the fry be safe? Please help. :? I'm a little nervous.

Thanks,
Emphasy
 
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