Frequent Aquarium Questions

• I have 11 gold dust molly fry and I wanted to know if you could give me some information on there growth and development. They are 26 days old and still quite small. I feed them a variety of crushed flake food.
  
  
• How long is a is the gestation period of a Swordfish?
  
  
• I just bought a male and female guppy. I have a 10 gallon tank with other fish and lots of plants. Would it be ok if I just let babies hatch in there and hide in the plants until they got bigger or would I need to take them out?
  
  
• My male guppy is chasing around one of my mollys and is not even paying attention to the female guppy. Could the male guppie breed with the molly?
  
  
• Can fresh water fish interbreed?
  
  
• My boyfriend bought 15 mollys and one of them had babies. We were wondering if there's any danger that they might get eaten by the grown-ups.
  
  
• What do molly eggs look like?
  
  
• My Platys have (so far) had 5 babies. I don't want them to breed. Is there a way to sterilize the fish (that doesn't hurt the others in the tank)?
  
  
• I have a male betta in a 1 gallon tank then I put a female betta inside but it died without the male picking on her. She did eat well and was happy. What could of caused her death?
  
  
• I have a platy that I'm not sure if it's pregnant or sick. It seems fine except that it hides a lot and is fat.
  
  

• I have 11 gold dust molly fry and I wanted to know if you could give me some information on there growth and development. They are 26 days old and still quite small. I feed them a variety of crushed flake food.
  
  Mollies usually grow fairly quickly, provided they are treated right. Mollies like some aquarium salt in the water. About one teaspoon per five gallons will do the trick, dissolved before adding it to the tank and add it slowly over a few hours. To get the fry to grow quicker, do small weekly water changes and feed them some freeze-dried and frozen foods to vary the diet.
  
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• How long is a is the gestation period of a Swordfish?
  
  Most livebearers have a gestation of 28 to 32 days.
  
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• I just bought a male and female guppy. I have a 10 gallon tank with other fish and lots of plants. Would it be ok if I just let babies hatch in there and hide in the plants until they got bigger or would I need to take them out?
  
  If you really want to breed Guppies, you should give them their own tank, then move the parents out after the fry are born, as the parents will also eat their own young. However, if you have lots of bushy plants, the odds are that some of the fry will survive.
  
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• My male guppy is chasing around one of my mollys and is not even paying attention to the female guppy. Could the male guppie breed with the molly?
  
  It is not unusual for a male of one species of livebearer to attempt mating with another livebearer species. It is possible they could produce hybrid young but not likely. The Variatus for example, is thought to be a hybrid of the Swordtail and the Platy. The female Guppy is probably not yet mature and so the male is not attracted yet. Give it time.
  
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• Can fresh water fish interbreed?
  
  Good question, and the answer is NO, with a couple of oddball exceptions. Saying that different species of animals cannot interbreed would be false, as the Mule is a crossbreed between a horse and a donkey. But nature doesn't look kindly on such animals, as Mules are also sterile and cannot breed themselves. In fish, there are a few species that sometimes interbreed in the wild, purely by accident. The most common of these that comes to mind are the species of freshwater Platy, which have been known to interbreed. However, such pairing is always between species that are very closely related or between subspecies.
  
  Then there are the weird man-made hybrids, such as the Parrot Cichlid, a cross between the Red Devil Cichlid and the Gold Severum(?). Such species are induced to breed by using hormones in the water and this practice is frowned upon by serious hobbyists. The latest popular hybrid is the Flower Horn Cichlid, and though breeders of this fish state that this fish was not cross-bred through the use of hormones; as they refuse to publish their methods, such statements are highly suspect.
  
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• My boyfriend bought 15 mollys and one of them had babies. We were wondering if there's any danger that they might get eaten by the grown-ups.
  
  Yes, mollies will eat their own young, though they are less likely to do so than other live-bearing species. You can help prevent this by adding a lot of plastic or live plants to the aquarium to provide shelter for the fry.
  
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• What do molly eggs look like?
  
  Mollies don't lay eggs. They are livebearers. The male fertilizes the female internally and the young are born live the same as us.
  
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• My Platys have (so far) had 5 babies. I don't want them to breed. Is there a way to sterilize the fish (that doesn't hurt the others in the tank)?
  
  No there isn't. If you want to control their breeding, only keep one Platy and keep other species.
  
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• I have a male betta in a 1 gallon tank then I put a female betta inside but it died without the male picking on her. She did eat well and was happy. What could of caused her death?
  
  Breeding bettas is tricky. Do not assume that just because you do not see overt aggression, there is none. The male certainly killed the female. Even in the wild, these animals live in shallow pools and the male will corral several females, thus lessening the aggression on any one female. The females can also jump from pool to pool to run away from the male and return when rested. Professional breeders have to "show" the females to the male with transparent containers so he cannot hurt them, until he builds a bubble nest and shows he's ready. There are several excellent books on this subject I believe you would benefit from.
  
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• I have a platy that I'm not sure if it's pregnant or sick. It seems fine except that it hides a lot and is fat.
  
  The easiest way to tell if any livebearing fish (platies, mollies, swordtails, or guppies) is pregnant is to check for a "gravid spot". This looks like a dark crescent or quarter-circle shaped marking at the rear of the abdomen (this might be difficult to see on black fish). Any pregnant livebearer should be active behave normally. Swelling and a tendency to hide could be signs of a problem.
  
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