oops

Question
Sorry Richard, I got my experts mixed up, Chris is the gentlemen on vacation haha.

sorry about the mix up.

can you answer my question about sexing mollys?
I had a batch of sailfin molly fry a couple months ago. I want to weed them out and give them to a couple of my friends who have started tanks of their own. How soon can I tell the sex of the baby fish? they are all more than a half an inch in length and some of the bigger ones are almost an inch long.  If I am able to tell now( before they get their fins) how would I go about telling the difference between the males and females.

thanks so much and sorry again!
-Katie  

Answer
Hi Katie

I can answer your question now. I would've answered before, but I didn't want to step on another experts toes.

Mollies can be sexed at about 3 months old. All babies appear female when they are born, but at 3 months, males would have developed the gonopodium (tubular shaped anal fin, underneath the fish, closest to the tail) In a female, it is fan shaped. This is also true of most livebearers, Mollies, Swordtails, Guppies etc.

No worries on the mix-up, again, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't taking anything away from one of our other experts. Hope this helps, good luck!

Richard