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Can I keep a group of all male mollies? No females?

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mollies
56K views 13 replies 8 participants last post by  Bonster11 
#1 ·
I do not want to deal with babies! I'm wondering if it's OK to keep a group of all males.
 
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#3 ·
It might not work to have only male mollies

When you see them at a store, there are usually males and females together in a small tank, and this keeps a balance for the group not to harass each other. If you try to separate them into just males, you stand the big chance of them fighting, harassing each other, and nipping the fins. If a pecking order gets established, and some hide away and don't mix with the others, they could survive, if you don't mind the constant fighting. I took some home and found this happened immediately, so had to go back and buy many females to counter this.

If you are worried about babies, just leave them alone, fry will be born and then eaten by the adults pretty fast. Maybe one or two might hide and survive until they are 1 -2 months old. But you have to have a well-planted tank with lots of places for them to hide. I was trying to save the fry, and saw 3 being eaten right away. This is a safer bet than keeping only males. Females are usually pregnant, but they are milder and will keep the aggressive males busy.

Graceful and Neonflux: "I do not want to deal with babies! I'm wondering if it's OK to keep a group of all males."
 
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#4 ·
From what i have read even though Mollies are not schooling fish they do in fact have a hierarchy in the tank and from what i have read without enough females in the tank you can get A LOT of aggression out of them even though they are calm fish but adding some females will allow them to make this hierarchy and it won't just be a bunch of males fighting for the Alpha spot because they have nothing better to do.
 
#5 ·
Quite true, Cspencer83, re Molly behavior

I have been watching the Mollies and their interaction, and the males are very aggressive, especially if you don't have any, or enough, females in there. There is an alpha male and an alpha female, which dominate the others. You want to keep the aggressiveness down as much as possible, because you don't need fin-nipping and growly behavior. I let the Orange Sailfin Male do his thing with the females, though the very beautiful Green one is shy, and doesn't get much of a chance to chase the females around. He spends most of his time avoiding the Orange one. If you wish to breed a certain shy male with a female, you have to separate them so the chosen pair will mate. If not, then having lots of females will make them all settle down, and be more agreeable and mild. At least 3 females per male or better...
 
#6 ·
Actually, in the few years I've been breeding mollies...Bachelor groups actually do pretty well without females to fight over.

It depends on space and hiding. Those are the two biggest things. Say you want five boys...you will want at least a 25+ gallon tank, bigger is better, with a lot of plants and caves. If you can get a 30 gallon that'd be about perfect for five boys and some cories, kuhli loaches or other small, peaceful bottom-dwellers. You want at least 5-8 gallons per fish as a bare minimum, if they don't have the space, they may fight for it. Same if you had girls too, but it'll be worse with boys if you don't have the space. With proper space they wont fight so hard, many think with less space they wont fight as hard because they don't have room to do so, but this is false with mollies. The only time I ever had so much trouble with sparring males was when I QT'd three in a ten gallon for two weeks, right away fight, fight, fight, plus their bioload is very high and they don't go well in small spaces. I used my twenty gallon as my QT after and had no issues with that! lol I've rarely had issues with males anyways, it's females I tend to get aggression issues with...

There may be sparring, it happens. Boys will be boys, but without females to chase, their spars will likely be...half-er...yeah, they wont go full force. lol Why risk injury without any benefits? Fish aren't as dumb as people think...though there are that special...many. LOL

Anyways, yeah, a bachelor group should do just fine. You may have a problem male or two, and you'll want to remove those. Any who rip fins, you want them out or it actually could start a mess. But in all likelihood, they will just do mini-spars and get along alright, may even try to mate with each other(if that happens don't be fooled unless you're unsure if you really do have all males), since livebearers are always trying to mate, even out of species or with other males.
 
#14 ·
Actually, in the few years I've been breeding mollies...Bachelor groups actually do pretty well without females to fight over.

It depends on space and hiding. Those are the two biggest things. Say you want five boys...you will want at least a 25+ gallon tank, bigger is better, with a lot of plants and caves. If you can get a 30 gallon that'd be about perfect for five boys and some cories, kuhli loaches or other small, peaceful bottom-dwellers. You want at least 5-8 gallons per fish as a bare minimum, if they don't have the space, they may fight for it. Same if you had girls too, but it'll be worse with boys if you don't have the space. With proper space they wont fight so hard, many think with less space they wont fight as hard because they don't have room to do so, but this is false with mollies. The only time I ever had so much trouble with sparring males was when I QT'd three in a ten gallon for two weeks, right away fight, fight, fight, plus their bioload is very high and they don't go well in small spaces. I used my twenty gallon as my QT after and had no issues with that! lol I've rarely had issues with males anyways, it's females I tend to get aggression issues with...

There may be sparring, it happens. Boys will be boys, but without females to chase, their spars will likely be...half-er...yeah, they wont go full force. lol Why risk injury without any benefits? Fish aren't as dumb as people think...though there are that special...many. LOL

Anyways, yeah, a bachelor group should do just fine. You may have a problem male or two, and you'll want to remove those. Any who rip fins, you want them out or it actually could start a mess. But in all likelihood, they will just do mini-spars and get along alright, may even try to mate with each other(if that happens don't be fooled unless you're unsure if you really do have all males), since livebearers are always trying to mate, even out of species or with other males.
 
#7 ·
Graceful only has a 10G tank

Because of the rather small 10G tank was why we said to watch out for aggressiveness. Not big enough to let males live peacefully. If we had a 55G or larger tank, that would be an excellent proposition. So just to note sizes; if the goldfish move out of the 46G, then you would be able to keep all males together.
 
#8 ·
Ahh, I missed that part....wait there isn't any mention of that here. If it's a ten gallon, zero mollies. They get too big, have too high of a bioload, it's more trouble than it's worth trying to keep it clean, let alone to keep aggression down, hard enough in a twenty with just four or five of them at that.
Mollies like to breed, but as far as aggression goes: They usually only show aggression when multiple males are chasing females, when pregnant, or when there isn't enough space...spikes in water parameters can also cause that. If you keep them in a proper tank for their group and bioload, chances are you wont have any aggression. At least not often. There shouldn't be any "Dominance" with them even with females, no pack-leaders with mollies, just fights over girls when one is in heat...Otherwise they shouldn't "fight" at all.
 
#9 ·
When female Mollies are in heat...

When are they NOT in heat??? Maybe when delivering the babies? Males after them ALL the time!!!

I know my 20G is too small for much, but I do have 6 Mollies, 3" and 1.5", 4 females, 2 males. (was 6 females, but took 2 out). Two had babies, so were put into another tank. I can see that the Alpha male, Sailfin GoldDust/orange with green sparkly fins, who is extremely aggressive, is the head fish. He is the dominant one, keeps the other one hiding. So I probably will get many orange fish from him, as the other one tries to go to a female, and is chased away by the orange male. He is a handsome one, so no problems there. But having bred birds once upon a time, I can tell a dominant one for sure.

I think if I had a larger tank, there wouldn't be any sparring, but for a small tank, you have to live with the extra cleaning and heavy bioload to keep the water sparkling. It is clear now, and all the 10G tanks, too. Never had a problem with the 10G tanks, once I learned what cycling is, and how to do it. Thank you for all the tips, and I am getting better at it now.
:lol:
 
#10 ·
When are they NOT in heat??? Maybe when delivering the babies? Males after them ALL the time!!!

I know my 20G is too small for much, but I do have 6 Mollies, 3" and 1.5", 4 females, 2 males. (was 6 females, but took 2 out). Two had babies, so were put into another tank. I can see that the Alpha male, Sailfin GoldDust/orange with green sparkly fins, who is extremely aggressive, is the head fish. He is the dominant one, keeps the other one hiding. So I probably will get many orange fish from him, as the other one tries to go to a female, and is chased away by the orange male. He is a handsome one, so no problems there. But having bred birds once upon a time, I can tell a dominant one for sure.

I think if I had a larger tank, there wouldn't be any sparring, but for a small tank, you have to live with the extra cleaning and heavy bioload to keep the water sparkling. It is clear now, and all the 10G tanks, too. Never had a problem with the 10G tanks, once I learned what cycling is, and how to do it. Thank you for all the tips, and I am getting better at it now.
:lol:
Your "Dominant female" is telling the other that there is not enough space there, she'll die if you don't do something.

lol the heat thing made me laugh, this is true...however, there is a difference. Mollies are always trying to mate, but when a female is receptive it's another matter: She puts out hormones and scents like any other female in heat, and the males go even more nuts. Especially around birthing time, honestly...they smell that, they want...to breed. Almost got bad there.

The problem with having them in a ten gallon tank is just about everything from space, to bioload. Just not good for them, and it's a bigger problem if you think it's ok to keep them in there and say there's been no issues. .-.


I feel like I'm getting off topic here...but yeah. If you have a ten gal, Grace, don't go for mollies. You're better off with endlers livebearers or guppies. Male endlers are the best, they do wonderful in bachelor groups, they're small, they're beautiful, and rarely nip each other. Guppies will also do ok, but with boys...well, guppies often chew at each others tails. Real pain in the butt, they are. Literally. LOL Hybrid endler/guppy crosses are about as bad as guppies.
 
#11 ·
I know what you mean!

When my female is about to deliver, I know she gives a scent which drives the males nuts, so I remove her beforehand, and thus she doesn't have to deal with that besides the birthing. It is stressful enough with the delivering process. I have a 10G tank for her to get into the process, and no others around to harass her and the new babies. It also makes her removal easier -- have a tank separation divider to keep babies out and give her a few days to recover. I move her about 5 days to a week before.

Despite having 4 females give birth recently, and seeing them in the tank right in front of me, I have yet to actually see a baby being born. Not like the videos on this, my female is hyper, running up and down the corner at the edge, eating everything in sight. She is not still at all. Sometimes pushes her bottom up against a shell to help it along. Just thought I'd mention this, none of them have been quiet and not moving. They seem anxious to get the babies on their way.
:roll:
 
#12 ·
Aggressive or playing?

So I am new to this forum thing. But I need some advice. I have 3 adult male mollies, 1 adult female, and 7 fry that I just moved from the nursery to "adult" tank. My male mollies keep chasing and nipping each other bottoms fin ( what I called their "private parts") is this normal? All 3 of them do it. But mostly the salvation and silver gaining up on the black one.
 
#13 ·
Aggressive or playing?

So I am new to this forum thing. But I need some advice. I have 3 adult male mollies, 1 adult female, and 7 fry that I just moved from the nursery to "adult" tank. My male mollies keep chasing and nipping each other bottoms fin ( what I called their "private parts") is this normal? All 3 of them do it. But mostly the salvation and silver gaining up on the black one.
I have read that the inferior males get a chance to breed with the female if they do that ..for some reason the female gets turned on by this homosexual behavior which makes them bi sexual ..I read they can also change sex.
 
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