breeding balloon/ or reg. mollies

can anyone give me some pointers on getting my fish to breed? I've got a male and female balloon molly in a 20 gallon, but am thinking of putting 2 more reg. mollies, or 2 more balloon mollies in with them. If I get 2 more balloons, should I get 2 female, or another male/female pair? My plan is to fill my 55 Gallon with Mollies, and instead of buying them all I figure I could raise my own babies to put in there. Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
-Mandi

 

If I was you I'd get 2 more females. Mollies are livebearers meaning they give birth to live babies instead of laying eggs. Livebearers are generally very easy to breed, so all you really have to do is make sure the water conditions are to their likeing and when the babys are born, if you want to keep them, make sure you rescue them & put them in another tank otherwise the parents will more than likely eat them.

 

thanks for the info

Hi Rosie, thanks for your input...I too was leaning more towards 2 more females as I already have a male in my tank right now. I'm aware they are livebearing fish. Would I be better of to have my other tank set up before I get my other fish, so if and when they have babies I could take all the adults out and put them in the big tank for the time being (This would be easier than fishing around for 30 itty bitty babies!)
I have a silly question, I don't *think* I can do this, but I'll ask anyways cuz ya never know. Is it possible to cross breed a regular molly with a balloon molly? Just curious. Anyways thanks for your help!!
-Mandi

 

It would be very handy to have your larger tank set up before any fry arrive, just so you can seperate the babies from the adults straight away if needed. To be honest I'm not really sure about cross-breeding. I think it's possible but I'm not an expert, so dont go with my advice alone. Good luck with your mollies!

 

i would also go with the two female mollys also like slat in their they are brackish fish

 

You can actually cross-breed any two mollies that have the same latin name. I had this question a few months back. For example, "Poecilia latipinna" refers to sailfin, lyretail, dalmation and balloon mollies, whereas a platinum molly is "Poecilia velifera." Now, my experience is that a) spearate strains usually produce weird mixes and b) they often will tend toward mating with their own strain. But with effort and luck, you can always interbreed strains of the same genus/species.

 

Well, I got my....

I went and picked out my new mollies. I decided on 2 more balloon mollies, and I picked out a dalmation lookin' one and a beautiful orange one with black tips on the fins, and they both just happened to be female. So we'll see what happens. I've got my other tank up n' running, I want to get it established before adding any kind of stock in there. Since it's a huge tank and I have 5 fish (now have 4 mollies n' a cory cat) how would live plants do? Just so they don't feel so out in the open I'd like to add live plants for them to hide in. I've got fake plants in there, but I think they'd like real ones better. Any input? thanks!
-Mandi

 

Live plants would be fine in the tank. How is the lighting is it jsut a regular bulb? also mollies can live in a large variety of water conditions. So it would help to know the pH of your water as well. Also what kind of substrate do you have? This would all help in picking out plants for your tank. -tl