# what happens when 2 different mollies breed?



## mlpzaq52 (Oct 21, 2006)

my white molly and black molly bred, so will their babies be dalmation mollies?
also, what if a gold molly bred with a white or black molly? thanks for the help.


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## bharada (Mar 5, 2004)

It all depends. Most likely you'll get a mixture of fish that resemble either the father or mother. But you may also find a few that have a combination of features. You'd then interbreed these fish in an attempt to fix the traits. This is how hybrids are created.


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## Wookiellmonster (Jul 29, 2005)

If you breed different colors you would probably get the color that is the dominant trait rather than recessive.


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## CardBoardBoxProcessor (Sep 17, 2006)

well.. i dunno about other mollies.. but sailfins produce sailfins!! i think the female egg has all the DNA needed and males only provide a stimulli for it to grow.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

CardBoardBoxProcessor said:


> well.. i dunno about other mollies.. but sailfins produce sailfins!! i think the female egg has all the DNA needed and males only provide a stimulli for it to grow.


Er?

I don't know *anything* about fish replication, but if it's like humans, then half the genes from the mother combine with half the genes from the father...

That's why you get a mix of traits from the mother and father. The dominant traits from either the mother or the father will show up, unless both parents are recessive in the trait. And from here on, it's too complicated so I'll stop. =P


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## CardBoardBoxProcessor (Sep 17, 2006)

sailfins mollies don't...


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

mlpzaq52 said:


> my white molly and black molly bred, so will their babies be dalmation mollies?
> also, what if a gold molly bred with a white or black molly? thanks for the help.


Well I would keep it simple and say you will get mollies...:flick: 

but more seriously it depends what genetic trates they have, they are probably "muts" so there will be a whole array of traits exhibited, some will look like mom some will look like dad, some will look like aunty mary who you dont know exists,..... :hihi: you get the point:icon_smil 

- Andrew


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## CardBoardBoxProcessor (Sep 17, 2006)

well if gold is dominate, lets call it G, and white is recessive, lets call it g. the big G always over powers the little g. if the G molly is a GG, meaning it has two dominate traits in its mother anf father chromosomes. and the female is a Gg meanign one os the parents had a recessive trait in its genes. you would get all Gold mollies.. you can do this by squaring them

___G___G
G__GG__GG
_________
g__Gg__Gg

however you can get some recessive from two gold mollies. 

___G___g
G__Gg__Gg
_________
g__Gg__gg

so for every 4 mollies yhe ration could be 3 gold for every white.

though.. there are some traits that blend... like white and red roses make pink roses..


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## mlpzaq52 (Oct 21, 2006)

so basicly i could get some white, some black, and some dalmatian and then i would breed the color that i wanted?

but how would you make sure they don't breed with any others? i don't have/ can't afford another tank for them.


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## fshfanatic (Apr 20, 2006)

CardBoardBoxProcessor said:


> well.. i dunno about other mollies.. but sailfins produce sailfins!! i think the female egg has all the DNA needed and males only provide a stimulli for it to grow.


Go back to biology class. You were obviously sleeping.


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## essabee (Oct 7, 2006)

mlpzaq52 said:


> my white molly and black molly bred, so will their babies be dalmation mollies?
> also, what if a gold molly bred with a white or black molly? thanks for the help.


If your mollys were line bred for a long time they would not have too many regressive genes and the progeny will follow the Mendels Law (1,3,3,1). On the other hand if your Mollys are only showing dominant colours are from cross bred community, you will end up with lots of variations from the wild (green) short finned variety to several indeteminates and combinations. Wait and watch, at least you will know what sort of Mollys you have.


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## crazie.eddie (May 31, 2004)

mlpzaq52 said:


> so basicly i could get some white, some black, and some dalmatian and then i would breed the color that i wanted?
> 
> but how would you make sure they don't breed with any others? i don't have/ can't afford another tank for them.


You can use a divider, but if you plan to divide up a 10 gallon tank, that's too small for them. It's better to divide a 20 gallon (preferrably 20 long) tank.


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## CardBoardBoxProcessor (Sep 17, 2006)

fshfanatic said:


> Go back to biology class. You were obviously sleeping.


No.. I have an A in bio-101.. I believe I was fully awake when talking about ameiotic fish.. I think you sir need to retrun to kindergarden and learn to read because you obviously did not fully read my post...I am only talking about one species. This would be the *Amazon Molly*.. also called sailfin mollies.

"The Amazon Molly has a very unusual reproduction system. Females produce eggs with two full sets of chromosomes, they are, in effect, "pre fertilised". The species is thus parthenogenic - all of the genetic material comes from the female and all specimens are female. They will not produce young however, until they have mated with a male of related species. The sperm from this mating does not join with the eggs, but it's presence stimulates the eggs to develop. Thus it is quite easy to breed P. formosa as long as it is kept with males of a related species, (P. latipinna P. mexicana P. sphenops P. chica, and P. vittata will all court and mate with P. formosa)."

I need to find the sight that i got that off again.. but I will find it when i am out of class.

oh look! I am right.. so read before you bash me and say i sleep in school.. 

Dispensable and indispensable genes in an ameiotic fish, the Amazon molly <i>Poecilia formosa</i>

Entrez PubMed
disclaimer: I know my grammar and spelling suck... if you attempt to make a come back using these fields.. I really would not be insulted haha


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## CardBoardBoxProcessor (Sep 17, 2006)

[email protected] said:


> If your mollys were line bred for a long time they would not have too many regressive genes and the progeny will follow the Mendels Law (1,3,3,1). On the other hand if your Mollys are only showing dominant colours are from cross bred community, you will end up with lots of variations from the wild (green) short finned variety to several indeteminates and combinations. Wait and watch, at least you will know what sort of Mollys you have.


he could do test crosses.. but you also would need to research the recesive traits.. buy one.. wait for them to breed.. 

wait.. what was it you wanted again?


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

Take some biology classes. You'll learn all about the recessive and dominant traits and the ratio of offspring resembling each parent. Same happens when you cross breed cats, dogs, rabbits, etc.


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## trackhazard (Aug 24, 2006)

Isn't sailfin molly Poecilia latipinna?

-Charlie


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## banderbe (Oct 10, 2005)

A total protonic reversal which can destroy the space time continuum!


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## fshfanatic (Apr 20, 2006)

CardBoardBoxProcessor said:


> disclaimer: I know my grammar and spelling suck... if you attempt to make a come back using these fields.. I really would not be insulted haha


and yet you tell me I should return to *kindergarten*? Now that is priceless. It really is hard to insult a person with low intelligence due to the fact they have no clue.


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## CardBoardBoxProcessor (Sep 17, 2006)

fshfanatic said:


> and yet you tell me I should return to *kindergarten*? Now that is priceless. It really is hard to insult a person with low intelligence due to the fact they have no clue.


^-^ but the "t" key is so close to the "d" key. but you do know I was right on the sailfin molly egg thing. hehe.


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## fshfanatic (Apr 20, 2006)

They are all close together.


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## CardBoardBoxProcessor (Sep 17, 2006)

fshfanatic said:


> They are all close together.


Won’t admit it huh? 

yes.. but poor b is so for away from q... V_V so sad.. lovers seprated by the crowd..


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## guppy yuppy (May 12, 2006)

*guppy yuppy*

well in my experience I have bread the silver lyar tail with black mollies (not intentionally) and what i ended up with were dalmation kinda looking mollies (ugly) mostly black they kinda look like they are black mollies with ick. not very appealing so i no longer keep them in the same tank.:icon_idea


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## mlpzaq52 (Oct 21, 2006)

darn. hope i don't get them.


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## guppy yuppy (May 12, 2006)

*guppy yuppy*

I hope not either i was very dissapointed. but i've learned that the mollies and swords can be mixed in a tank and the fish stay true to types. Good luck !


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## mlpzaq52 (Oct 21, 2006)

thanks!!!


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## Tilla (Mar 16, 2008)

*breeding mollies*

i have bred a few fry of mollies so far and the father has always been a silver sailfin molly and the mother was a marble molly ( black and white with a touch of orange on her side) all of the fry have been totally differnt from each other apart from one colouration which seems to be pretty common. there have been no pure white ones as of yet and have had a few pure black ones ( bearing in mind neither of the parents are pure black). alot of them are marble or dalmation, some are black with silver bellies but most of them have a black tail and dorsal fin with a pinky orange head and body. the markings on those ones differ but they do look pretty cool. i have kept 2 from my 1st fry and gave 6 more to friends and 6 of them have turned out to be male all with sailfins. someone said earlier in the thread that the males sperm only activates the females eggs and has no effect on the babies. well thats a lie because none of mine would have sailfins would they. i have my tanks temprature at 27.4c and i think that is a key to producing male mollies because the 2 fish that are female are from a tank which is at 25c and the 6 males were all grown in mine. that is just a thought at the minute but after the batch of fry grow that i currently have i will know for sure.

this is just my experiance in breeding mollies and to conclude it i would say that the traits in the fry will differ the same as it would in people. you can only try and help the end product by trying to cross the differnt types and hope for the best. if you cross a sailfin with a baloon molly wit a sailfin will it be fat with a sailfin or skinny with no sailfin? all we can do is try and see


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## Aubzilla (Mar 2, 2008)

^ and that is one of the problems with common names.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

Mollies are one of the most diverse groups of fish- and Amazon mollies (_P. formosa_) are indeed a fish unto themselves, as they do not need males to reproduce at all (thus the Amazon molly designation). 

Most of the Mollies commercially available are really of indeterminate species as they have likely been crossbred so many times. This does make genetics very fun and interesting, as who knows what you will really get both in terms of genotype and phenotype!

Dr. Ted Coletti does a great series of articles on livebearers that often features Mollies in Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine, for anyone who's interested in learning more about indigenous species of Mollies. There was a great article about the Amazon molly in the February 2008 issue. http://www.tfhmagazine.com/


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## Kets (Mar 9, 2008)

Just wondering, but if I keep female P. formosa with male P.reticulata,would I get all Mollies and no Muppies/Gollies?


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

There's alot of debate about whether and which Poecilia species can interbreed. IMO it's *extremely* unlikely that the particular guppies and mollies you have in your tanks would be able to breed.


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## Blue Ridge Reef (Feb 10, 2008)

guppy yuppy said:


> well in my experience I have bread the silver lyar tail with black mollies (not intentionally) and what i ended up with were dalmation kinda looking mollies (ugly) mostly black they kinda look like they are black mollies with ick. not very appealing so i no longer keep them in the same tank.:icon_idea


Same experience here. When mixing livebearer strains, most of the fry turned out incredibly ugly -especially with black mixing with other types of molly. I'd be surprised if you got a "dalmatian." Nothing I ever came up with was nearly that clean of pattern. But this is how "new" strains are formed, these breeders just destroy over 99% of the resulting fish, I'd guess.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

I know this is an old thread, but I see it was already brought back to life once after 2 years, and I have related questions/issues.

I bread a black molly with a dalmatian lyretail. Three batches of fry so far, the oldest being something like 8 to 10 weeks old. So far none of them have shown any of the dalmatian white coloring. They have varying amounts of black coloring and speckling, but where there is no black, there is just bland coloring. In fact I think it's an absence of any coloring. Is this normal? Does the bland eventually turn white?


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

Your question is pretty different than the OPs...

But in your case, the dalmation is most likely a recessive trait. If you keep breeding the offspring to the offspring eventually you'll get a few dalmations, if it's a pure recessive trait and not a result of partial dominance...

If you google dalmation molly genetics you're likely to come up with some articles, I'm sure there's got to be some info online about breeding them.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

lauraleellbp said:


> Your question is pretty different than the OPs...
> 
> But in your case, the dalmation is most likely a recessive trait. If you keep breeding the offspring to the offspring eventually you'll get a few dalmations, if it's a pure recessive trait and not a result of partial dominance...
> 
> If you google dalmation molly genetics you're likely to come up with some articles, I'm sure there's got to be some info online about breeding them.


My concern is that I'm getting a really bland coloring. The amount of black is what I would expect, and ranges from full black to lightly speckled black. The problem is the non-black parts are just bland, and not white. So I'm not getting something that looks like the Mom, Dad, or something in between.


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