What Are The Best Types of Methods For Conditioning Black Mollys?

Question

I have 2 black mollies. I decided to seperate from a 55 gallon them into a 10 gallon that way they are always close to each other. I also put live plants in the tank along with a cave for privacy. And a air pump. What else should i add to the habitat for an sucessful fry?

Answer 1

Sounds like a good set up. Remember tough that the more plants, the more hiding places for little fish when they come along.

The environment is only one of three parts to conditioning. The other two are water and diet.

Be sure your fish get a widely varied diet including both vegetable matter and meat proteins. Many frozen fish food meals provide both of these. I would suggest a quality flake as the staple and as much variety of frozen foods as possible. I feed flake once a day and frozen or live foods once a day, seems to work well for me and offers a variety to the fish.

For the water some salt is quite important for mollies. I wouldn't really go above 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons, or at most 1 teaspoon per gallon due to the plants. The mollies will be fine in far more than that, but the plants wouldn't. Keep the tank warm as well. Upper 70's to lower 80's is a good range for conditioning.

As someone above me said, a sponge or foam filter is the best type of filtration for a fry tank. It will give a biologically stable environment without risk to the young fish. They run off of air pumps, so it will be quite easy for you to add one to the tank.

Mollies are generally quite easy to breed and also forgiving of fish keeper errors, so you shouldn't have any problem at all. Best of luck with them and if I can help further feel free to email me

MM

Answer 2

I'd make sure the pH of the water is above 7.5, perhaps a little aquarium salt,and one or two more females,because the male will continually pester a lone female and that becomes stressful at birthing time.Make sure that there are enough plants to provide cover for the fry,(use inexpensive "bunch" plants,like Hygrophylla or Anacharis.)and don't try to move the females to a separate tank or brooder net. The fry are usually large enough that the parent fish can't eat them all and they rapidly become inedible for the parents because their bones harden fairly quickly. Also with the air pump I'd use a sponge filter,it will provide gentle aeration and after several weeks(5 or 6) will become a very efficient bio-filter. Until then you will have to be very careful about water quality because it will take time for the 10 gallon tank to cycle. Mollies also like some plant matter in their diet.Zucchini or spinach or romaine lettuce are all good foods,but they must be blanched before feeding.Blanching involves dropping the sliced plant material into boiling water for 1 or 2 minutes,then putting them into cold water to stop the cooking. Good luck.------PeeTee

Answer 3

You should use about 1 tbsp aquarium salt per gallon of water. Just bear in mind that the salt does not evaporate with the water and should only be added again during water changes for the amount of water you're putting back in to the tank.
They don't need hiding places. The more open their swimming area, the better. 2 mollies is the perfect number to keep in this size tank (they typically require about 6 gallons per). Sounds like they've got a great set up :) They like the temperature in the 70's.
Add in a foam filter before the fry come so it's "cycled". You don't want them sucked in anywhere :) After they're born, 25% water changes weekly are good.

Answer 4

how much salt did you have in the other tank.. put the same amount of salt in th other tank. MAKE SURE YOUR TANK IS CYCLED they are delicate and make sure your tank is dechlorinated. You should put a small bowl, a little cave made of driftwood.

Answer 5

Another cave for the other molly. In case it wants to be alone.