[Sylverclaws]

I'm starting a new area here for my babies and stuff, as they go hopefully.

Oh boy did I get a big batch this time! I actually had two females pop(in the last month I think I've had six or seven of my fish give birth, I am swamped for the Spring with possibly two more mollies, and two guppies about to pop soon too!). I got about 6-8 red calico swordtails from one girl, her first brood(she's about a year and a half old, born on New Years Eve year before last, and I bred her with a Brick Orange male, who was actually more red with a black tail)...and probably 70+ from my white and orange MM swordtail, she's got a lot of orange on her belly but the rest of her is white and black(bred with a male of like color but with less orange, only one orange dot on his belly and a full black sword), who actually popped about 50 a couple weeks ago and stayed rather large. Well now I know why, she wasn't fat, as I guessed she had a second brood growing. I am not sure how many I really got, but it was more than I had before. I'm estimating close to 70, AT LEAST! Both girls popped at the exact same time, I wasn't sure who did it. ^^;

Anywho, this is a photo I took when I moved them out of my homemade nursery net. I add in plants there so the mothers can give birth and not eat many young. The nets are large, a bit over a foot long and around 6-8 inches deep(I got tired of those tiny nets!), but alas, there were too many babies, so I emptied my nursery tank, moved about half the babies to that after moving a brood of mollies and guppies(about eight guppies, two platies, and 40 or so mollies) to my pool tank(73 gallons, using it to raise my rather large influxes of fry until they're big enough to be sold). Pool tank currently has her old brood in it, as well as 4-5 platies and 5-6 mollies. I am gonna need a bigger pool at this rate, even though I am dividing babies between my 10 gal and 55 gal. Planted tanks, good filtration, food and cleaning. =)

Anywho, onto the photos. I took these as I moved the babies to the other nursery, some of them anyways. What I have in the net is probably half of the new swordtails, maybe a tad more. The rest I left in the nets for now. Pardon the cuttlebone, snails and plant bits I got in there, also snagged a lone guppy(I had a molly, guppy and one white platy in there that I couldn't catch!). ^_^









Edit there...now that I counted best I could from those photos, got around 67 I think...I'm thinking I got even more than I initially thought since that isn't even close to all of them. O_O;

 

[dancelady]

So you sell them -- to retailers, friends, business?

In a while, I may have half as many as you do, so where do you sell them? Will you ship them out? I have been looking at the Buddies Bags and such for this, and have no idea how they work. What does a breather bag do, does it have much water in it? And this protects the fish, as long as they are small with no sharp fins... (Does a swordtail have a sharp fin? I only have Mollies, so not worried about sharp fins...)

Does the charge for shipping and handling appx. $30+ for overnight really allow for safe travel with no DOAs? My problem is my fish could never be as beautiful as the specialists, so will just think of giving them to a local store. But if I ever order any, how good is it from someone like Aquariumfish.net?

 

[Sylverclaws]

I haven't started selling them yet, I'm hoping to have that set up soon, today if at all possible. I'm going to be shipping them, and it's my first time, but I'm researching safest ways to do so, I intend to have them in small boxes, well padded.

THESE babies wont be ready to go until waaay later this year. Next to platies, swordtails are the slowest growing livebearers, they can take a year just to pass the one inch mark. x.x I do, however, have some solar flares, and twin-bar solar flares ready to go that are about at the inch mark, some may be a bit bigger. They were born...uh, last Fall I believe. Also have plenty of mollies ready for new homes. lol If you want some, you better have a nice 30 gallon tank set up, they need a lot of room for a small number of them(3-5 in a 30 gallon long tank!), they can be vicious if cramped, or just plain get depressed and get ill and die. =/ Sweet fish otherwise...though males can be pretty nasty regardless, especially if there is another male. Sometimes they get on, but other times not so much, one of the only livebearers I know of that often do poorly in bachelor groups.

 

[Romad]

Love these pics!! All those eyes with tiny tails attached

 

[dancelady]

Sylverclaws, go look at this

At Aquariumfish.net, you can get a great idea of how they pack and ship their fish. And kensfish.com, who has the breather bags for shipping. These seem to be a great help to keeping fish alive and happy in the process. I am quite interested in this, and may order some along the way. It is a much better way to handle the fish, and they describe how they pack them and how light the box is. Good luck with the selling, and keep me posted on your fish.

 

[Sylverclaws]

I wanted to show you guys one of the Yellow Cobra endlers I bred. He and his brothers were accidents...Initially I thought I just had female tigers to go with my males...turns out I was jilted a bit and the females are some kind of cobra endlers. Though it wasn't planned, I wanted to breed Tiger Endlers...in my personal opinion the Yellow Cobras came out MUCH prettier than the tigers.

Young yellow cobra male, you can also see one of my red/blonde tuxedo males and my green cobra mix female:


And here is what the tigers look like, they don't have as many markings...some did, just not this particular male I got in, also see my tux in the way again, and the tail of my black-bar mix(no idea what he really is, but I want more):


Recently about six of my females gave birth on the same day. I am hoping some are from my yellow cobras again, I'd like to see if they breed true with my cobra girls, and am also hoping that my black-bar mix got his genes in there. He looks EXACTLY like his father, the females his father bred with are the same kind of females I have now, though none are related to any of the males in the tank. I would love to breed more like him. He's the same size as most male endlers, real small, but his tail is an oddity. It's not fanned like a guppies, but the colors make it LOOK odd shaped, when in fact it is the same shape as most normal endlers livebearers(maybe a tad larger but it's nothing extreme). I just love those colors and his very sweet temperament. Just like dad. :3

You can see the male I'm talking about better here in this photo:

 

[Sylverclaws]

I got in some new fish today. Ordered six N-Class Black Bar Endlers. I intend to breed them and not mix any of my girls, though I may add a male to a group of mixed females I have in another tank...I wont be messing with their genes on any girls, I plan to breed some more pure strains, I just need to find a few more so I can open up the pool a bit so I get no inbreeding. They arrived about half an hour ago and I'm currently acclimating them. They are much younger than I thought they'd be, few days old for some, maybe a week on a couple others. Cute, really active and look healthy. I'll see about photos of them later. I have them in a ten gallon tank, or will when done being acclimated, that is well planted just for them. Few ghost shrimp in there too. They're so cute. =)

I love raising fry. This way I can also be in more control on their raising and immune systems too. I've noticed a lot of fish you get at shops will sometimes turn up noses at foods that are good for them, but if you start young, you can get them to eat a pretty good diet with lot's of options. For example, none of my store bough fish will touch blanched greens like romaine lettuce or zucchini. Not many anyways, fish I've raised tend to love the stuff though(although I admit some get a bit meh with the gourd foods like zucchini! LOL But most will nibble and eat off of it before the snails move in). I like to feed my fish fresh blanched greens and a few frozen foods on top of good veggie flakes, so it's always a bonus when you raise them on the stuff, they turn their noses up at less stuff.

 

[Sylverclaws]

Found some babies in my tank today. Likely a lot more in there, but they were born in the main 55 gallon tank. lol Hard to find all those kids, I think I got six or seven. Some are yellow-tail marbles, I think, the rest are from one of my mixed butterfly mollies, likely with a yellow tail marble. One of my girls was really fat the day before and is not any longer. She thins up and I find babies, so naturally I assume her. LOL One in there is sorta a red color, it's a platy that is about two weeks old...so you see how huge those molly babies are. I have them temporarily in that breeder until the larger net is free, and once bigger they'll either go in the pool tank or the main tank. Photos aren't the best, sorry. I'll try to get more later. One is of them when I was moving them to the other tank, and the other is in the breeder. =) I'll also try to get you guys some of the endlers babies alter on, they'll be even harder to get photo of because not only are they small and quick, but they're in a very well planted ten gallon tank.

They look pale, but they have some orange and black markings like the mother, some do anyways, the rest are more of a cream color.




This is the mom of the butterfly mixes:


See a couple of them there. I'm not sure either is mom though, mom has a dark head and tail like the top one, she looks more silver than she is because of the flash, can't get good or semi-good photos without it. The rest of her is orange, but she does have some silver around the bottom of her belly and tail.

 

[Sylverclaws]

Well...I've moved some things around. Right now I have a pool full of fry in the basement. Mix of swordails, guppies, platies and mollies. Probably around 50.
I have a 55 gallon, with greatly reduced numbers of the same, I'd say I'm down to about thirty. =) Some are sub-adults or almost full grown fish(about ten), the rest are juveniles.
My ten gallon is now my shrimp tank with some fry in there for now. Guppy fry and five molly fry. All my clone guppies are in there. Not sure on their numbers, but I'm thinking anywhere from ten to twenty. They're very tiny! Have about ten ghost shrimp in there.
My other ten gallon has mixed endlers and two or three guppies. About eight fish...though someone gave birth to about a dozen fry, they'll be moved soon.
My twenty gallon is now my Pure Strain Endlers tank. Currently has my eight black-bar endlers fry in it. Can't see any markings on them as of yet, but most look to be female and getting their gravids, on three or so I can't see those spots and they're chasing the ones I think are female. Guess we'll see. Depending on how many of each gender, I'll be trying to find some more from a different breeder soon so I don't inbreed. 3-4 of the fry are bigger than the rest and are obviously much older by at least a week, the rest looked newborn when I got them, so hopefully they had different parents. There are also 3-4 ghost shrimp in there.
My blue crayfish, Baby Blue, passed away today, so I made the change, figured it'd be better for them to have more space anyways. It was a real bummer. I have been reducing snail numbers in all of my tanks...I did not realize he was eating almost solely on those, I always put food in for him and didn't realize he wasn't getting enough. I feel so bad. >< The only upside to it was more space for my endlers and an open tank for my random guppy fry and shrimp.
As for my outdoor pool, I started adding my mosquitofish to it slowly and just finished that up today. That pool is alllll plants, the mosquitofish will hopefully keep bug numbers down. I DID lose three of them to a wandering predator...I am not sure what, but it did some damage to the plants when it took some fish, the first four I added in, only one managed to escape with his life. I've since added even more plant cover, and a cave. And I also added my female gold gourami, she seems to get along with those nasty brats, they don't bother her. I hope it stays that way! She seems to be enjoying herself out there...it's warmer in that area than I thought, so she'll be good, and she loves bugs too. I'll be supplementing their diet with fresh greens and larvae as well, just to be safe for now. My mosquitofish have already started breeding and popping kids. Several females came pregnant, got a few males later. Two or three females already popped, and the fry seem to be doing well after a few days with the parents...I'm sure I lost some to them, but many are hiding well and eating fine out of the plants.
Ah, my five gal, can't forget about Sprite the betta. =) She's doing well, growing and happy. There are two young platies with her for now. It started out as a temporary thing, still is since that tank can't hold them much longer with how fast they're growing. Soon as I work out a few more things, the platies will go back into the 55 gallon. I just want them to grow a bit more first and make space. One is a blue, the other is a pretty white calico. :3 The only calico I have left and I want her, so I've popped her in there. The betta leaves them alone completely, they've been together about a month or so now. Not even a nip to anyone, I love that, she'll make a good community betta if I ever decide to do that...just need proper tankmates that wont pick at her. Or not, I like her fine in her five gal. I clean it twice a week to keep down problems since their bioload is too much for a five gal...but since they're small the space is fine, for now.

And there's my update. Fry, and all tanks and pools. =) Expecting some more fry soon too, from a couple silver dalmatians and from my silver butterfly. One dalmatian and the butterfly are absolutely huge. c.c It's possible one of my shortfin harlequins may drop soon too...or maybe they're just fat, I honestly can't tell and think they may even be males.


Comp crashed last night when I was writing this, yay for it saving it! Lessee if I can finish that, got some more news to add anyways....

Yeah the harlequin ones are males. They're getting the boy parts. x.x Both of them, darn! Fat little monsters. They're constantly eating my fry if any are born in there, and do not care if I wave the net at them. =-=; Today I think TWO of my fish gave birth. One dalmatian slimmed up, and my Silver Butterfly is still popping babies. I can't catch them all, I just spent the last hour and a half doing just that and they're still coming. lol No idea how many I have...considering how big, and yet how tricky they are, I think I only managed to catch 15-20, they're hiding well, I moved all the good spots out so they can get in, but the adults can't. They are BIG babies, as expected from mollies of her size...the butterflies anyways, I think the smaller ones are from my much smaller dalmatian. lol Unfortunately...I killed one. T_T I got so good at catching them without harm I think I got careless. He tries to slip around the net as I pulled it up. Poor kid! He was pretty too, looked like he'd be white with odd black marks around his body...he looks kinda panda-y, some others kinda do too. That'd be neat, I hope they come out that way but I doubt they'll stay like that. Any I get with oddball colors usually get darker or lighter as they come out of fry-hood, though some keep those colors others lose them by going black or gold dust. lol

Anywho, good stuff. Hopefully all those hiding spots I added to the main tank will do their job, most seem to be.

 

[Sylverclaws]

My Silver Butterfly Molly finally popped. I got some photos of the babies. =) Some may or may not be silver dalmatians too. I think the ones that are a tad darker in color might be. They're big, aren't they? I've found butterflies and larger lyretail mollies tend to have some huge babies, nearly twice the size of the smaller type molly newborns.

 

[Sylverclaws]

Red and White Swordtail

I got a little video of one of my swordtail babies, now much older. I had put him in the 73 gallon pool I have with the rest of them. Most have new homes, and the people who got them will have some real beauties. lol They started out red/orange, some where white or getting there, as you can see in my first post. But over time most either turned white, or came out like this fella, he's quite pretty. He's the only one I have left like that, the rest are either bright red, red calicos, or pure white(one has mickey mouse). I've decided to keep this one. :3


This is part of a video, I shortened it, that focuses on the swordtail. I moved him from the pool to my 20 gallon tank for now because I wanted to watch him grow. There are also those silver butterfly molly babies, I set them free from the plastic breeder soon after taking photos and making sure they were healthy, and some black bar endlers, still young but two are showing colors and the black bar now. I don't think you see much of the endlers since I was focused on the swordtail though. Isn't he/she pretty? Any idea what you'd call that color? She's half white and half BRIGHT red with mickey mouse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EGcQowrOrs&list=UURrfOvOO-Cni3xwvo6rDzhw

 

[Sylverclaws]

Here's a photo of that new swordtail juvenile. He's really cool. What would you even call that? And yes, it took sitting there for an hour doing nothing but snapping and changing batteries before I got one good pic. LOL Little brat never holds still, food got him though.

 

[Sylverclaws]

My Black Bar endlers are looking good. Seems I have seven...had eight, but I can't find one, I think I accidentally left it in the fry tank, they're hard to find with silver molly fry at this stage, I'll figure it out i'm sure. ^^; Anyways, of them all, two are becoming males and getting in their colors. One of them has more green/gold and red while the other brother, who I unfortunately can't snag any photos of(he see's the camera and hides in the java moss or pot, little booger, and I had to use the flash or their colors didn't show, in case anyone wonders what those odd white marks are, it's water spots on the glass in the flash), is more blue, green and red. Anywho, he's just begun his color changing, they are so pretty. I have them in a planted twenty gallon, which as soon as I sell all my silver butterfly molly fry, they'll have just to themselves fish-wise. I do have a self-cloning crayfish in there, but she's a sweety.

 

[Sylverclaws]

I got some new platy fry. Yay. =) I decided to get in a new female, she was quite pregnant. Pretty, beautiful female.

These are my newborn Gold Twinbar platies(Platy's? Never could figure that one out! lol). The mother gave birth to them the day after I got her. I was hoping to get some new blood in since I only have a female white calico and some female spotted blue platy(two) and two male blues, one is blue with a red back, his pa was a red MM. So, not enough girls. I tried to get more. Had my female in a QT tank after she gave birth in the net....she looked great. Large, healthy, active...but she had a red mark in her belly I assumed was more fry. Turns out it wasn't. Not sure if she had an infection or if something got stuck. I had added a little aquarium salt just in case. She was pretty pepped out after giving birth to 30-40 fry. She perked up though, but four days later, today, I turned on the lights and she was dead. When I netted her a lot of puss and blood came out her back end, so I'm thinking something must have gotten stuck. Poor girl. =( Anyways, her babies are doing well. Once I clear out the older kids in my nursery and make sure they don't have anything nasty, should mom have been sick and not injured, they'll go to the planted ten gal nursery, or the 20 gallon planted nursery. Once a bit bigger and able to fend off older babies and compete, they'll go into my 73 gallon pool with other fry until they're old enough for new homes, or for my big tank. They're cute! They seem active and healthy, but then so did mom, and was likely killed by a stuck baby, it's all I can think of that'd cause that.

On another note, I managed to sort of bully an employee into letting me take some other platy fry, I THINK they're sunset fires...not sure. Petco/Petsmart now have a policy to KILL fry they get in, which makes no sense and ticks me off. Their reason? And I quote "We're supposed to destroy them now because catching them takes up too much time for no money, and people kept coming in every day for them." My reply: "So sell them! It takes just as much time to catch and kill them than it does to catch them for others who may give you a few cents for each, versus whatever poison you use costing you more and you still use time to catch them!" In the end I told her I was going to complain and that wasn't going to be happening under my eyes or I would never shop there again. I'm going to complain anyways and spread the word. =) So yeah, I got some other babies. They're in there too, just not in the net. They're big enough to be in my pool with the other fry, but these guys are going to be in a smaller tank where if they are sick, they wont do much damage to others. The newborns though...I doubt they would be sick, but if mom was it's possible. So in the net they stay until that tank is cleared enough to release them. I've only got the fry in there, but I want them separate...not that a net in the same water will do much, but it's the only place I have. Got my ghost shrimp in there too, they're popping little ones as well. x)

Here's the video, it's a shorty, about 30-40 seconds or so. It may be processing the lighting still though, but should be done soon provided there is no glitch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKKvUe5HYWA

 

[dancelady]

All Petco stores supposed to kill fry?

Is it just your store that wants to kill the fry that come in, or ALL of them? I would like to go and complain to my store, if this is universally true. And go in and take what I can find of Molly fry, what is a few more in my tanks... why do they do these awful things just because some manager doesn't want to deal with it? I am sad and angered by this technique -- when do the stores get so busy that this is damaging to them, most of the stores I have seen have the clerks unbusy most of the time.

Now a question: are the ghost shrimp in with the Endler fry? Do you know if the shrimp can live in the brackish water that is good for Mollies? I would love to have a few shrimp, but didn't see anything about the water condition for them. They can stand variations in temperature and pH, but don't know about the salt in the water. Do you use any salt regularly for your Mollies? In that tank in which the baby Mollies are, do you keep it FW with no salt?

I wish my baby Mollies would get their genders sooner, they are now 4-5 months old and just beginning to indicate their maleness. Of course, I have one that is over a year and can't decide which way to go -- it gets bigger every day, but is on the fence still about gender. I want it to breed, but wonder to whom it will sidle up. For Mollies, how long does it take to develop their gonopodium for breeding?

Lastly, my Sailfin Gold Dust balloon belly male seems to have developed something on his head just in front of the fin. He is orange, and this is orange like it belongs to him, but it is new. It looks like orange bumps on his head -- do they grow anything as adults that looks like a crown?? He seems to have a hat on. I have seen goldfish with bumps on their heads, but not any Mollies. Have you seen this, or do I need to post a picture? He seems normal, but what can this be?

Your Ghost Shrimp is having live babies? I thought that they would have eggs under their bellies for a time and then babies later... is it the first time, they do have live babies the 1st time, I think?

 

[Sylverclaws]

From what I was told by three different workers, they had been discussing it for a while now and the stores are supposed to ALL do it. They said Petco too, not sure though, I heard this at Petsmart.

Yes, I have my ghost shrimp in two tanks, one with my endlers and one in my nursery where I mostly keep baby guppies, right now it has guppies and newborn platies. :3 They are not HUGE on algae eating(they eat very tiny amounts), but yes they do ea algae. If you want them as cleaners...you'd need a lot of them and they aren't really the best clean up crew. Snails are better for dumping food down their throats in large amounts for their size.
As for living in brackish water? No. You can acclimate them very slowly over to EXTREMELY low strength brackish water, but not the kind mollies prefer.

Your one year old having problems choosing...that's very weird. Depending on the type it should be either full grown or 2/3 of the way done for the larger species and decided. Are you sure it isn't one of those larger types that just has the heart shaped anal fin? If so, those are female, it happens. lol My Butterfly had her shape like that, never changed. It's very unusual for them to not be fully set by 6-8 months.

Mollies, especially balloon mollies, can sometimes get...moles. lol Usually around the top of the head and the chin. However...more often than not bumps on the head that look as you describe are likely the start of a fungal infection and you need to be careful. I once had a female orange balloon molly with columnaris, her started out like bumps, then a rough patch like a "Hat" and then it exploded into fuzz. I got her ill from the shop like that. I tried to treat her for it, but in the end she had her babies and died.


Ghost shrimp carry the eggs until they hatch, and then drop out live babies as if giving birth. You should go look up a youtube video. They have EGGS, but they do not lay them...and when they pop them out it looks like they're giving birth, so they may as well be having live young. However, I never did say that, I said they're also popping babies, which doesn't mean as it sounds....however it LOOKS the same. The term of "Popping" babies, means babies are popping up in my tank, though I do often use it for my female livebearers when they're about to pop or have. lol ^_~ So no, they have eggs, then they sorta squirt out the larvae after that, barely visible...I never though I'd have any, but some appeared in the java moss and moss ball I put in just for them to eat and be safe.

I have some photos of the baby ghost shrimp, I'll add them up later on. =) They are -extremely- difficult to get photos of. This one in particular is about 1/2 an inch or less...and they're see through! I sucked him up into a turkey baster and took a photo, he's less wide than my pinky finger, got him in my clear fry net...I'll likely put him back, I'm afraid my snails will bully him there.

 

[dancelady]

One year old Molly is my Harlequin female>male?

My Harlequin was born a female as you know, then I put it in with a male for breeding, and it kept rebuffing him and chasing him around. Finally I thought it wouldn't work, so removed the male. Later I added a female for companionship, and bless goodness, it started acting like a male. All the things a male does, and it spends its time hovering around the female. But it never got any gonopodium. So you are saying some don't get that, have a different anal fin? Do you have a pix of that?

So it is probably a male, and will be a big one -- do the larger males mate with much smaller females? I noticed that the Gold Dust Sailfin male with the head bumps doesn't bother any of the Dalmatian females, who are bigger and normally shaped, but spends his days chasing the balloon belly females who are his color. Seems like he only wants his "own" kind to mate with.

So this male with head bumps might have an infection that is starting up? Should I treat him now, or wait a bit to see if he gets more symptoms? He is the head honcho in his tank, and likes his harem. But he doesn't seem to be acting oddly... I posted a pix of him in new thread under livebearers so you can see what I mean.

 

[Sylverclaws]

All males have a gonopodium...however, not all females have a fan shaped anal fin, sometimes it's heart shaped. You would be able to tell...I may have some of my girl somewhere.

Yeah, here's one...not a very good shot, it looks sorta like she has a dual fin there, but it's heart shaped.

See it a little better here.

And yeah, she had 96 babies(that I know of, they were born in the main tank with a dozen other fish including a very lovely gourami whose favorite food was fry). Not very small ones either. lol She stayed pregnant and kept getting bigger for another two weeks. I thought she was going to explode. At first I thought she was just fat. >_>; She was a greedy gut, fasted them for a day, she just got vicious, not thinner. x.x


As for the head bumps, keep an eye on them. It's impossible to tell if it's something to worry about, or just moles at the moment since I can't see them, and even if I could I may not be able to tell you for sure. If you're worried though, and I suggest you do this to be safe, snag some photos of it, or video, and ask in the disease thread.

 

[Sylverclaws]

My Silver Butterfly is getting ready to pop again. She is a cross between a butterfly, also called a creamsicle because they're usually orange, and a shortfin molly I believe. She doesn't have the full butterfly fins, but she's a pretty thing. Her siblings were the same silver but most had black spots like a dalmatian, so da could have been my dalmatian sailfin, but because her sail is short and her lyretail isn't as extreme as a butterfly, I assume shortfin. lol She had some lovely babies before, I have her in my planted 20 gallon endlers tank at the moment, hoping to get more of her babies. The father is either my silver lyretail mixed with a butterfly, I hope(they are always breeding so it's my best guess, but she could well have a mixed batch having other males, including a black gold dust who is quite lovely), or one of my short-fin harlequins.

Anywho, look at her. Anyone want to guess how many babies she may have? lol I know it's impossible to know, but go ahead and give us a guess. :3



And here she is with my black gold dust. I haven't seen him even remotely interested in anyone, that doesn't mean he hasn't been. They make some of the coolest mixes.


Here again, you can see her with my short-fin harlequin male(I call them that because they have the colors and all, but they do lack the fins, the two boys are gorgeous, one in particular has all black fins). That black gold dust is absolutely stunning, I am hoping to breed him with some other gold dusts or gold dust marble crosses unrelated, but one day I am hoping to get in some sailfin/lyretail black mollies to mix him with, hoping for more butterfly like fins and the same color mixture. He is a gold dust, pure and simple, they come out like him on very rare occasions and I'm hoping to up the chances:


I've been after black sailfin or lyretail mollies and white mollies for a while now. Very hard to find ones that aren't carrying some nasty like a parasite. c.c I've had a ton of trouble. I had a pair of black lyretails, looked lovely...female gave birth a couple days after purchase and died, the male had died the day before her. I never saw what caused the problem, they just got weak, refused to eat and then died. Couldn't treat them since I had no idea. Unfortunately the entire brood of babies died within three days. Mama must have had something very nasty, or possibly stress got her and she dropped the brood too young. I've never lost a brood before. Very rare I even lose fry at all, but the whole brood was a major hit to my heart, and my luck. =(

 

[dancelady]

Sorry about your black mollies, a sad thing

I know that black mollies seem to be less sturdy than the silver ones and others, probably because to get all black, there have to be some breeding mistakes. Too many recessive genes in there, I bet. But I had the same sort of thing with my black mollies; I bought three, one died practically on the way home, and her replacement also died in a few days. Later the black male died, and now the only remaining female had popeye, for which I am treating that. They just seem to not be healthy, and my mother had some (an era ago) who also were weak and less than normally strong. Now I have a small clan of black babies, even the number was feeble, compared to other colors and types. So far they seem OK, but are smaller than the average size of others born a day or so apart. Let's hope they will grow up to be healthy and normal. I am not betting on that, though.

Your Black Gold Dust (seems like an oxymoron) is outstanding, but he is unusual in being so black-like. I guess sometimes it swings to the dark side but is quite lovely. I wish I had some like him -- and one other I would like to see are the Chocolate colored Mollies. Can't imagine what it really looks like. I do have a mix that appears to be like old brick -- partly gold dust, partly silver, partly black so the result looks like old dirty worn brick. Ha, how would you name that one?

Silver Butterfly will have 47 babies... uh huh, all big and strong!

Oh, forgot to mention I found another Cory baby today, must be a couple months or so old in the main community tank; yep, must have been hiding all that time to still be alive and kicking. Imagine they are not even big enough to see when freshly hatched, and had to find food, stay hidden, and keep away from all those mouths ready to eat 'em up. That is some favored baby, to my thinking.

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