My mother was eating lunch when she noticed a curious gathering in the bottom corner of the fish tank. She put her glasses on to have a closer look and discovered tiny new inhabitants emerging - the very-pregnant Molly fish was giving birth to babies!
The googly-eyed goldfish neighbors attempted to eat some of the little newbies, so my mother lured them away with a generous offering of fish food. Then, while they were busy pursuing the floating pellets, she carefully scooped out the babies into a cup of water.
She waited patiently throughout the day for the remainder of the babies to come out, and by the end of the day there were 20 little guys!
While mommy Molly is pure white, the little guys are all different colours - black, yellow, white, and spotted. I am so delighted to be able to welcome so many new fishies, and it's so neat that Molly fish can give live birth! I always thought that fish only lay eggs.
Note: I was calling the fish a Platy earlier, but it's actually a Molly fish. Thanks, Karen!
Here are some pics:
6 comments:
ohmyheavens! Congratulations to the new mama!!
All 20 of them look healthy and are swimming around eating dehydrated brine shrimp and algae off of the plant!
Eee! So exciting!
What fun! My Mom always loved keeping a tank of guppies when I was growing up. They also give birth to live babies. Such a fun memory.
So, are you going to be getting a much larger tank or adopting some of them out? :)
EEE!! So cute! :) Hi babies!!
Watch out. Sometimes the Mothers eat their own babies. We used to have a big tank of fish and would wake up excited to check for babies in the net. But sometimes their were babies and sometimes they were already eaten. :)
We used a kind of box made out of net mainly. It sat against the side of the tank. You could put the Mother in before she had the babies and then take her out when the babies appeared. That way they were safe from the other fish in the tank, including her.
Hi Laura! Yes, we have had to watch out for the mummy fish and the other fishes eating the babies up. We now scoop out the babies to transfer to a new tank after they are born.
You can read updates on my fishies here:
http://mytutorlist.blogspot.com/search/label/Fish
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