Strange fish behavior ... what is it?

Hey guys.. I posted a few days back .... thanks for all your resposes and help!! I appreciate it so much!

I have another question now....

My two molly fish are acting quite strange with eachother. They are tail to head side by side and are sucking on eachothers bodies and kind of going in a circle motion. They are also looking like they are kissing eachother on mouths as well. Is this some type of strange behavior or is this normal? I dont know if they are fighting or just playing?

Thanks for any advice you can give!!!

Bec

 

im not up tom dtae on mollies per say, but from what u said they are either mating or fighting....because tehy are livebearers, i would say possibly fighting.

 

Can we talk about the different kinds of breeders? i.e. what is a livebearer and what are the other types?

Not that I'll be breeding anything anytime soon...

 

livebearers are fish that give birth to live fry, such as guppies, mollies, platys....egg scatterers scatter teh eggs in places such as plants like tetras and the eggs have to fend for themselves. cichlids raise their eggs and care for the fry.

 

Sounds like aggression to me. Do you know what sex they are?

-Chelle

 

I am not sure what sex they both are ... i do know for sure one is a female (she had babies) and i THINK the other is a female as well.

Is there anything I can do to stop them from acting this way? They have actually gotten worse since I last posted .... they are now attacking eachothers side fins. I put one of them in a net for a few minutes to seperate them and fed them like this because they were going at it so bad.

No clue what to do .. but feel really bad they are going at each other so bad.

-Bec

 

You could try adding some artifical plants to help give them some cover and help them define territories (although I never really though of mollies as being territorial, but I suppose it's possible).

-Chelle

 

Hey Chelle -
I do already have the artificial plants in there .... two cave things as well. They don't seem to want to hide for cover though hehehe. They both stand strong and duke it out in the middle of the tank.

I'm attached to both of them and don't wanna see anything happen to either...

Do you think one could end up killing the other? I dont know about fish aggression (and didnt think mollys were this way) so I don't know with smaller fish like this if this is something that could happen?

Thanks!!!

-Bec

 

It's possible that they could kill eachother or just stress eachother out so much that they become more susceptible to illnesses.

You could try separating them both for a few days (either leave the more passive one in the tank or put them both in nets).

-Chelle