mollies/fry/petstore?

Question
QUESTION: Im interested in keeping Mollies. These arnt my first fish, but I was wondering what kind of tank setup they like (terrain and all the like.)I want to keep at least 10 - 20 so would a (20 -30  gal tank do ?). I know thier a messy fish fish so do you recommend anything else to get with them that can be a cleanup crew? Also I wouldnt mind breeding them under one condition. That my local store could take them. My question about that is .. How often do stores take Mollies ? is there a demand for them ? Also is there a demand for a certain color? I like to keep males/females cause of thier interactions, but I will not if i cant find a home for the young. PS: I was looking at the black Mollies and also the orange ones. Is there a website where i can see all the variations on their color ? thanks for helping!
ANSWER: Hey Matthew.
It's great you are interested in mollies! I'll help you out.

If you want 10-20 of them, you might even want a 50 gallon (incase you ever want more, or to keep babies, etc), but a 30 would probably do nicely.
Also, there are many different types of mollies. If you want different types, but you don't want them to interbreed with each other, then you might want separate tanks. But, if you would rather breed different types together to get cool looking mixes, then get one big tank.

you might also want a separate tank just for fry... it makes life SOO much easier to have a separate tank. More fry survive in a tank than in a breeder net. Also, in the fry tank, get a plastic breeder trap instead of the breeder net. they work better, and more live. Set it up so there are slits in the bottom, so the mother (in the trap) has the babies and the babies fall through into the tank.

the trap looks similar to this:
http://www.arcatapet.com/fullsize/213.jpg

different size types are balloon, sailfin, and then regular sizes. There are many color variations as well, such as creamscicle, dalmation, marble, gold dust, etc. there are also different shaped tails, such as lyre tail. All mollies can breed with each other, no matter what color or size.

normally, people don't want to buy a fish that looks like it bred with whatever it wanted, so try to make interesting combinations. color mixes can turn out good or bad, and sometimes an even mix in a litter. All color variations are caused by mixing colors, so try making your own.
The most common solid colors are Black, White and Orange. Sometimes peach and grey can be obtained by mixing black and white or orange and white.

Try finding golddust mollies since you like orange and black mollies, they are black that fade into pretty orange specks. i couldn't find any pix of them, but i used to have a few.

here are some pictures of mollies:


http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Livebe55.

here are a few more pix:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.elmersaquarium.com/image_fish/


very nice collection of pictures and breed info:

http://www.vaquariumthailand.com/product/mollies.asp?group=mollies


there are still other types that i couldn't find pictures of, but searching google will get you some pictures as well.

before you even buy the mollies, goto your pet store and ask if they would hire you as a local breeder. mollies sell pretty well, and many petstores sell out pretty quickly and don't get many shipments of them. I always have a hard time finding my mollies. If you have quality babies, they will probably take your babies. But ask before you buy them to see. Tell them you already have your mollies and you wanted to see if you could find a retailer before breeding them anymore. You don't want to sound like you never bred them before or like you are stuck with a bunch of unwanted fish, so make them think you are experienced and have bred for a long time, etc.

if you really don't want to breed but want the mollies, then you can just let the mothers have the babies in the tank, becuase they will probably all get eaten and then you wouldn't have to care for them or anything. Sounds cruel, but thats what would have happened anyway if they were still in the pet store.

you would also have to raise the babies to adults before selling them, they don't take babies.

as a clean up crew, you can get any type of catfish or algea eater, and some snails if you want. Basically any type you would want.



as a tank set up, you can have live or fake plants, whichever you prefer. I like fake personally becuase they don't pollute your tank, you dont have to replace them when they die, and they don't bring snails or ick into the tank.

hmm, im not sure if i answered everything or not. i think i did, but if i missed anything or you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

ps. sorry this took a while to answer, my internet was down for over a week.

best wishes, chelsey

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for your info. Right now I went with 8 silver mollies and 3 black. I have one lyre tail black molly ( which I want to get a mating pair of). all the fish are about a inch long right now. I am wondering how to sex them. I cannot find any good pics of a male female side by side shot. I know im suppose to look at the anal fin, to see if its sharper. But I cannot tell a differ them plz help I already have 12 mollies, if i have all males .... Then i need to get at least 15 females.
btw i went with the 55 gal.

Answer
here is a pretty good shot of a male and female together:

http://www.bio.txstate.edu/~gabor/images/msail&amazon1.jpg

the female is the one near the top, the male is the lower one. The picture is great of the female, but its not very clear on the male.

here is a second picture, and again, the female is one top and male on bottom.

http://www.edas.com.au/EDAS-Weird-P-latipinna.jpg

the male one is still a bit unclear. the next picture is a male alone, which is pretty good.

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/SailfinMolly/molly.jpg

on the next webpage, the first picture is of a male sailfin molly. this shows the fin setup pretty well. if you scroll down further, there is a sorta fuzzy side by side picture of a male and female.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Des



i hope these pix help you out! i dont think you have all males, so don't worry. Normally there are actually more females than males, but there have been a few exceptions I can recall. Males coming from tanks in a pet store with a high number of males and low number of females tend to be agressive, at least that was always my case.
once you start breeding and stuff, you will slowly start to be abke to tell them apart more and more, and soon it will be super easy for you. You will be able to buy them inthe store knowing which they are.
males have more of a pointed single fin (its not actually a single fin, but looks that way) and females have three normal looking fish fins.

your tank sounds like its going to be great once you start breeding and knowing whether they are males and females, etc. Im glad you went with the 55g, you will be too once you start breeding. =]
best wishes and good luck! chelsey