# Discovered my first fry



## DonD13 (Jan 5, 2012)

So I fed my fish this morning, and was surprised to see a single fry, around 3/8" long swimming cautiously out of a cave/rock overhang. :fish10:

In the tank (55 gallon heavily planted) I have: 

1 male dwarf gourami
3 damation mollies (1 female & 2 male which was a petsmart screw up, supposed to have gotten 3F & 1M, but one female died and one turned out to be male) 
3 female creamcicle mollies that I've had for ~3 weeks
2 female sunburst platies 
1 green hump cory cat (not sure of gender)
lots of live plants, large rocks & driftwood for cover
however many ghost shrimp have survived from an initial dozen months ago.


So, the curious thing is, this fry is golden & black which would make me think it was from one of the creamcicle mollies & one of the male dalmations, except I haven't noticed any of the creamcicles looking pregnant, and I'm not sure I've had them long enough for that to happen anyway. One of the platies has been very shy, hiding under rocks and not even coming out for food often, and the female dalmation has been hiding in a cave for the last week (same cave I initially saw the fry come from), I'm assuming she's either dropping fry or close. 

Is it possible for a male molly to impregnate a female platy? In any event, I'm happy to see the first of hopefully many fry. This little guy is swimming quick, and eating voraciously (s/he grabbed a flake about twice his size and pulled it back into the cave, after eating 2-3 smaller flakes) 

I'll keep you posted as s/he grows larger.


The fry is between 3/8" ad 1/2", so I'm assuming it's not newborn.


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

Molly platys crosses are unlikely. With that mix of fish, you'll probably have to wait to see what it is. Don't forget - a fertilized platy will keep sperm alive and refertilize herself up to half a dozen times. You may never have seen the father.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I agree, unlikely. I have two tank fulls of livebearers (75 and 125g) and I have watched them way too much. A male Molly could never get the speed necessary to catch a female Platy...for that reason alone don't think it would be possible. Mollies are pretty slow swimmers compared to other common livebearers like Guppies, Swordtails and Platies. Some Mollies can also be difficult to tell if they are carrying young or not. I have had really fat ones that just sort of looked that way. I've had mostly black ones though...harder to tell for me anyway.


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## DonD13 (Jan 5, 2012)

*Update*

A quick update, I haven't been on the forum for a while, been really busy with work. Since my last post, I have at least 4 sets of fry that have showed up! 

The first fry I discovered is definitely a female molly, and is almost pure yellow. She is almost 1.5 inches long now! Then there is a single female platy, red/orange with black fins who I discovered shortly thereafter, around 1 inch long. There are 5 more mollies, almost silver with a few black spots, who are around 3/4 to 1 inch long, and there are a bunch of recently discovered fry (not sure which species) who are 1/4 to 1/2 inch long, and varied in color from pure black to bright gold with black fins. 

Sadly, I lost my gourami last week, not sure what happened. He was active and eating well when I left one morning, and when I got home from work he was floating near the bottom on his side, not responding to being prodded with the net. Checked water, and all parameters were at or near zero (nitrates between 0 and 5 ppm, everything else zero). Haven't decided if I will replace him yet. He was a beautiful fish, and got along with the mollies just fine (the 2 males and the big female are way bigger than him anyway  )

Also, I noticed over the last 2 weeks that I have snails. No idea where they came from, no new plants or fish in the last month or more (other than the new fries obviously) The mollies seem to want to eat them, as they are only 1/16 to 1/8 inch in size at this point.

I'll keep you all posted on events as they occur.

Cheers,
Don


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## Copachick (Jun 7, 2011)

I discovered two little snails in my tank a few months ago. Must have been the smallest baby snail ever on a new live plant we had gotten. Havent seen him since though, sadly. 

Discovering fry is exciting! We have 9 growing up right now in our 10 gallon. they'll go into our 36 soon, and possibly 75 when they get even bigger.


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