Best, easiest and cheap tank mates for Mollies

Guppies

Guppies are live bearers. They are good tank mates for mollies cheap and almost every shop will stock them. There’s plenty of different colour. They are also easy to care.

Platys

Platy’s are also recommended as tank mates for mollies. They are easy going livebearers and there’s so much different colours you can choose from. Platies eat similar food as mollies so that is a huge bonus.

Swordtails

Swordtails. Again livebearers. Little bit more aggressive than platies, but not too bad. Just don’t mix too many males as they tend to fight little bit. Cheap and plenty of shops stock them.

Shrimps

Shrimps! We love them. Aquarium janitors. Keeping algae levels in control and eating any food that is around. Just try to keep the number down. Mollies will probably eat young shrimp, but if you give them some sort of shelter (Java Moss) they will multiply in few months. Get some bright coloured shrimps. Shrimps are fun to watch and keeps things tidy, but remember to do water changes and regular cleaning. They are not miracle workers!

Snails

Snails are usually harmless, but the population can quickly explode and get out of control, so you need to be extra careful if you want to keep them in your tank. We recommend having few assassin snails if you want to keep snail snail population in control. Just in case if you get unwanted snails from.

So there you have it. Basically we like having livebearers in same tank with mollies. Don’t forget to have plenty of plants, rocks and wood to provide enough cover for baby mollies and hiding places for females.

What do you think of our short list? Is something missing?

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Would you like to save some money, have fun and at the same give your mollies better food? Make your own fish food! It isn’t that hard and you mollies will love it. It is ok to feed them with flakes and to be honest….flakes don’t cost that much if you don’t have hundreds of mollies and multiple tanks, but it all adds up and you might have most of the materials needed already in your fridge or at your local grocery store.

Some vegetable options you can feed to your molly fish

You can find multiple recipes from the internet, but basically with mollies it comes down to having some vegetables and probably some protein (shrimp, white fish) if you want to add vitamins, spirulina etc. to make it more professional you can, but it is not necessary. Add everything to blender and create fish food smoothie. It looks and can smell pretty nasty, but don’t worry about it. After creating that lovely smoothie, you add gelatine or something that will make your DIY fish food hold together. After adding gelatine you can pack it to ice cubes or flat ziploc bags, cool it down and freeze it for later use. It is ready to be served to your mollies after cooling. You can give the frozen cubes straight from the freezer. Cubes usually float and it is fun to watch mollies eating them like there is no tomorrow. So there you have it. Not much science behind it, but lot of small easy steps to make your own homemade molly fish food.

Quick homemade molly fish food for beginners

If that sounded like a lot of work you can always go the quick way: Just microwaving frozen peas until they are bit hot and take out the pea shells with your finger. You can cut them, but microwaved peas drop them to the tank and mollies will most definitely eat them. Remember to let the pea cool down after microwave! Peas are great food for mollies, because they seem to help mollies digest food better. A good tip is add some sliced garlic with peas. Garlic can help with internal parasites. You can also cook/steam peas or vegetables, but microwaving is quicker

Mollies love almost all vegetables, but they seem to enjoy peas, cucumber, spinach and other soft green vegetables.

Why don’t you start steaming vegetables for your self to eat and save some for your mollies? Just don’t add any salt, butter or spices to ones you give your mollies. You and your mollies would be eating healthier and saving some extra money at the same time.

Do you have a special mix for your mollies or any other tips for home made molly fish food? Let us and everyone else know!

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Beginners guide for feeding Mollies

What is good food for Mollies? What do mollies eat? Just flakes and thats it? We are going to look at some of the good and the bad. It is important that you are feeding right food and right amount to your mollies. Otherwise your precious mollies will end up getting sick or even worse. You are what you eat applies to fish also! Luckily feeding Mollies isn’t rocket science if you follow basics.

Mollies that live in the wild are mainly omnivores and feed on algae, plant matter and small invertebrates. However when kept in aquarium, mollies should be fed quality flake food and a wide array of vegetables. The new life spectrum small fish formula is one of the best high quality prepared foods that you can feed them. Their favorite vegetables are: shelled peas, cucumber medallions and zucchini medallions. For those who do not have time to blanch or cut vegetables, a spirulina based flake or pellet can be an alternative to plant matter in their diet. Mollies are mainly vegetarians, but they like to have some protein based food addition to their diet.

Did you know that Mollies actually have small teeth and they chew food? Like other livebearers they eat or taste almost anything they can get hold of. Mollies tend to chew and eat plants and vegetation in tank, but that’s because they are always hungry and they will do almost anything for food.  Regardless of how regular you feed them, they will still beg for more.

You can also add other foods to their diet by offering frozen krill, frozen mosquito larvae and others. Always look for the “freshwater” label when buying such foods from any local pet store as they usually have frozen food for other marine aquarium fish as well. And then instead of dropping the whole cube into the aquarium, first cut part of the cube off before dropping it into the water.

How often you need to feed Mollies?

When you feed them and notice that they are spitting the food, it means they have had too much. But they usually go after the spitted food even though they are full. You can feed them once or twice a day like most people do. They will do fine with that. When you feed them with flakes remember to crumble the fish flakes into small bits so that they can have an easy time eating them. Keep in mind that you can feed them twice or once a day and they won’t mind at all. They usually eat within 5 minutes, and if you continue to drop more food into the tank, they will keep on eating but they will spit it out which means the food will end up settling at the bottom and make a real mess to the clean water.

Here is a rough guide of their diet in the wild and what you can feed them in the aquarium:

Basic

• Slow-sinking vegetable and protein pellets
• A wide array of vitaminated flake food which promote growth, a strong immune system and color
• Fast-sinking vegetable and protein pellets so that they can browse for their food

Treats

• Zucchini or cucumber slice with protein pellets
• Frozen bloodworms and blackworms
• Brine shrimp
• Daphnia
• Spinach
• Peeled, crashed and mashed pea bits
• Algae pills
• Tubifex dried cube

Molly diet in the wild

• Algae (they are actually good algae eaters and keep your fish tank clean!)
• Plants
• Small insects/ larvae

How to feed Mollies to get them Breeding?

For those who want to get them into a breeding condition feed them on frozen or live foods for a treat. It will make a huge difference and most likely you will get better results in terms of breeding and your fish well being. Some of their favorite frozen foods include; brine shrimp, daphnia and blood worms. You could also try to make your own molly fish food. It could be lack of fresh food in your mollies diet that causes them not to breed.

Final thoughts

One of the most important things that you can ever do for your fish is to feed them in small bits. The main goal here is to make sure that your mollies can handle and eat what you feed them before most of them fall to the bottom without the fish eating them. This will be a big issue because the food ends up sinking to the bottom which contaminates the water. Additionally decaying food raises nitrate levels in the water which is a common fish killer, so feeding them in small bits after sometime is the best.

Hopefully the article has given you some good ideas on feeding your molly fish awesome and great food in the most appropriate way. Nevertheless do not forget that mollies also like other foods other than tropical flakes. Of course they seem to enjoy and get excited over flake food, but everyone including fish likes a little variety here and there. Do you want to eat same food everyday?

Take care of your Mollies and yourself

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Babies are lovely!

How to care for your newborn Baby Mollies

You got baby mollies! Good job! Everybody loves baby mollies. They are fun to watch and gives more life to your aquarium. But what to do with baby mollies? How to feed them? Here’s some basic information and tips to get you started.

Tank

The pregnant molly is supposed to be isolated into a separate tank to nurse it either in suspended net or in a birth box.This means the babies are suppose to be separate from the other fully grown fish. Immediately the mother gives birth should be taken out not to eat his babies thinking they are food. The babies tank should have temperatures of between 78 and 80 and need a pH which is neutral and stable raging between 7 and 8. Baby mollies survive well in a spacious aquarium. They are known for utilization of space and its high mobility hence at least a 20 gallon tank wound be ideal for the baby mollies. The aquarium for baby mollies should have adequate supply of oxygen to ensure they do not suffocate and die. Finally, decorations of any kind do not disturb their quite life but adds flavor to their playful life.

Protection

As mentioned earlier the worst enemy of baby mollies is their mother since she eats them if not separated from her own fish babies.Due so such a danger their several methods used to curb that problem.They are highlighted briefly below.

• Its important to use natural or artificial plants to offer them hiding grounds for them in case of any danger they face from their ‘cannibal mother’. Its highly recommended such plants have leaves floating on the surface of water. Many of fish farmers also feel its to an added advantage to have feathery plants increasing the surface for hiding.
• One can use an industrial made “breeder box” which has separated chambers for the mother and baby mollies. Its placed on top of the tank and ensures when the molly babies are born they move to the next chamber and hide from their mother. The size of the mother keeps her at bay and the baby mollies are safe.

Feeding

The baby mollies are in very critical stage of the life of the entire molly fish generation. They undergo rapid cell division, elongation and enlargement hence they should be fed on regular basis.
Their favorite base food for the babies is flake food. its highly nutritious and ideal for easy growth and development at very fast rate.The flake food however should crushed into very fine pellets to easy swallowing by the baby mollies.They are ,like grown up mollies, have huge appetite for meat food like small worms like black worms.They also feed on vegetables and algae so it would be prudent to add to their diet to supplement flakes and meaty food.

Tank mates

Its not advisable to breed molly fish babies and other varieties since they are said to, like the adult mollies, have a sharp fin which can injure others. Otherwise, they are very friendly and can co-exist with other types of fish in the same tank harmoniously.

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How many Molly Fish my tank can accomodate?

When choosing a tank for mollies one needs to consider several things. Firstly, the number of mollies to be put into one tank. The best number of mollies that can survive comfortably in one tank ought to be less than 10 or 1 in every 5 gallon. However, there can be more mollies in case the tank is large enough and the variety of mollies to be kept is the short-finned molly whose maximum size is relatively small. One should maintain strict rations of stocking mollies into any size of tank. A ratio of 2 females for each male is recommended in order to control the breeding and the competition for space, food and oxygen requirements in the tank.

Breed of Molly does matter when choosing tank size

Secondly the size and breed of mollies to be placed in a given tank should also be a consideration in choosing the right tank. The short-finned molly is relatively small and therefore undemanding in tank size. This variety grows to a maximum size of 4 inches (10 cm) and it can be housed comfortably in a 10-gallon tank. However, one can provide them with a 29 gallon tank, if they really want to have them thrive. The sailfin mollies which grow to a maximum size of 6 inches (15 cm) require a tank with a minimum capacity of 29 gallons (110 liters). The larger the tank, the more stable is the environment for the fish since mollies are prone to issues that come with sudden fluctuations in water quality- an issue common in smaller tanks.

The 29-gallon tank accommodates only a small group of mollies and larger groups need larger tanks of about 45 gallons (170 liters). Larger tanks provide appropriate water conditions as the population of the mollies increase. The black molly is a highly suited for community tanks because it is relatively peaceful.

Thirdly, the tank size should also be reasonably big in order to accommodate plants and the lifestyle of the mollies. Adult mollies appreciate a heavily planted tank. Some of the plants recommended for growth are java fern, anubias and vallisneria. Alternatively, one can have a thick algae mat on the floor of the tank. On one corner of the tank, some floating plants are necessary in order to promote the rearing of mollies outside the breeding tank. Moreover, some mollies are timid and they get bullied by the others and as such they need hiding places. Larger tanks are a good choice because they can accommodate plants and the fish while providing an almost natural habitat for the fish to thrive.

The shape of the tank does not matter much as long as the tank is big enough to accommodate the mollies and their lifestyle.

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