Mollies fighting - what to do?

superorderchic

I have 4 mollies total, one that I bought when I set up the tank. The original mollie keeps chasing one of the new ones, and I'm not sure what to do. They all pretty much ignore each other, except for those two. Any ideas? Should I take one of them back to the store?

- rebecca

Highland lake13

Do you know the genders of the fish? because they may actually be trying to breed and not fighting.

~Cam

superorderchic

Not sure what genders' they are - but that could be it... the poor thing looks like it's gonna have a heart attack.

aquatramp

Sounds normal for Mollies. Probably two males there.

MsFrosty

Same thing is happening with my platys, I would try to sex them seeing which are males and which are females. I am new to this but these were my options when I had the problem. If your original is fighting with a male you have three options, take it back, seperate them or (This is what I did BUT I am prepared for LOTS of fish fry) buy enough females so that each fish can have its own group. I have 6 females for my 2 males and they don't pay much attention to each other any more.

fishman09

they could be mating, or if there is no visible damage then they could just be bored

Oldman47

To tell the difference in most of the common livebearers you examine the anal fin, the one right in front of where the wastes come out. Warning, this is an extreme closeup of a fish that is only about 3/4 inch long so it's a bit fuzzy.
This is an example of a female fish. The triangular shaped fin says it is a female.

This is an example of the same species of male fish. The elongated anal fin says it is a male.



These happen to be Heterandria Formosa but the fin shapes are the same on guppies, swordtails, mollies, platies, limias and lots of other of the most common livebearers.
Goodeids also can be distinguished by the shape of the anal fin but in a male goodeid, the male looks like the female in these pictures except that the anal fin looks like it is split in two instead of being skinny. The first 2 or 3 rays, bones, in the goodeid anal fin will be in the front part and the rest of the rays will be in the back part.
The common name for goodeids is splitfins for that reason.

With these examples you should be able to tell very quickly if you have a male courting a female.

fishman09

if there is damage put one in the breeder trap, but if there is no damage, then they might just be bored

JHK30

lol fishman09 you kinda repeated yourself twice. I would say just sex them by there fins and your good. if they are fighting chances are the one will have bitten pieces from its tail

fishman09

and if there is peices missing from the tail, then that is bad,