Fully Bellies

Question
I just bought two female Mollies and one already has a chubby belly. One of my male Mollies keeps mating with both of them. So my question is do you know when Mollies will give birth? Are their any signs? I want to have a chance at saving the fry. Thank you for any answer.

Answer
Hi Jennifer,
 It takes a couple of weeks or so for the embryos to reach the point of coming out, however, it is also possible that she was already pregnant when you got her.  Livebearers are very interesting in that many of them only have to mate once with a male and then they can keep producing batch after batch of babies. The female stores the sperm and only uses some of it on each batch.  

The best sign is that the female gets REALLY large.  If you really want to save some of the fry, put the female in her own tank until she gives birth.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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