Blood Molly

[Fionn_Matt325]

I was in the fresh water gig for a while when i was younger. i had a 55, but cracked in the move. i gave it up for a while, but just for the heck of it i picked up a 10gal. starter kit. that's when i saw her.
she was a blood molly, the only one in the tank with veroscious carnivores. i had to save/have her.
i decided to call her Akasha (from Queen of the Damned) for many reasons. first she held her with the big meat eaters, 2nd she became the boss of the tank, and three the premire of Night Stalker with the guy who played Lestat in the movie went on.
needless to say she was my fav. after a few months i even tried to breed her, but the males died. she followed not to long after.
after a while i lost interest in the tank, gave away my other fish, and packed up the 10

[lcstorc]

Sorry to hear.
How nice of you to try to save her though.

[Intranick]

I dont know if it has anything to do with it, but If i remember right mollies are technically brackish fish -- where did you obtain the males? did they die right after acclimation? if they did, did the pet shop keep them in brackish tanks or fresh water tanks? (heck, ive even seen them kept in salt water tanks with a slow enough acclimation) What about water conditions? Live Aquaria doesn't have a blooded molly, but the recommendations for a black molly are "Tank Conditions: 68-82°F; pH 7.0-7.8; KH 10-25".

sorry for your loss -- lets get to the bottom of this, maybe it'll make it easier..

[Fionn_Matt325]

no i didn't acclimate them they were strictly fresh water.
they were called blood mollies, and i only found the males by chance. actually i found her by accident too, and i've only been able to find them once online. however you need to spend like a min of $100 to ship. anywhere else doesn't even list them as a type of molly.

[vdituri]

Do you have any pictures of them or what they look like?
Sounds interesting.
Great choice of name by the way.

[Fionn_Matt325]

unfortunately the only one i have is on my phone, and i dont know how to transfer it. but picture a black molly, but instead of all black it's all reddish/orange in color with white eyes and red pupils.
that's one of the reasons i wanted to breed her too, because apparently their rare. (Not for money, but for the hobby.) i even thought about hybridizing her with either a creamsicle molly to make a bloodsicle or an Ebola Molly - a Blood/Dalmation hybrid. (one of the symptoms of the Ebola Virus is puking up blood with black specks in it- courtisy of the book Hot Zone.) that would've been my favorite.

i brought the breed up, because i was curious if anyone else heard of them. man i was over these guys too, but all this talk about them makes me want them again! i guess they don't exist online anymore, but i wonder if my LFS will be able to track a couple of them down...

[vdituri]

Sounds cool!

Can you send the picture from your phone to your email?

[Fionn_Matt325]

unfortunately she was camera shy, and it was taken with a camera phone. its the only one i got. it's been a while i forgot about the white belly.

[vdituri]

Looks like a beautiful specimen.
If not a bit blurry. lol
Thanks for the pic.

[chum]

Nice little story about your Blood Molly, Sorry for your loss. Tricky situation, that breeding adventure.

We are interested in breeding our Oscars cichlid pair which is presently jaw locking. ( I have an 11 year old son, who loves science... so it's a project we can work on together)
We have only bred guppies successfully by putting a plant light in and having lots of plant life for cover, they reproduced themselves without a hitch.

Cool avatar!

[Fionn_Matt325]

i've only bred livebearers, so i don't have any tips on the cichlids sorry. i couldn't keep them from breeding no matter what the situation. sadly towards the end i started neglecting my tank. it seemed that it made them even more horny, cause she wouldn't stop poppin them out.

as far as my avatar, thanks. i decided to show my trekkie side for halloween.

[PEMfish]

Good pic, specimen is a little fuzzy though.
Poecilia latipinna is probably what u had. Blood molly is just one of those annoying nick names the FW hobby has. It could also be called Red salifin molly. They only live for 4 years anyway, and the being horny, did you try lowering the temp to 74?

[Fionn_Matt325]

Originally Posted by PEMfish

Good pic, specimen is a little fuzzy though.
Poecilia latipinna is probably what u had. Blood molly is just one of those annoying nick names the FW hobby has. It could also be called Red salifin molly. They only live for 4 years anyway, and the being horny, did you try lowering the temp to 74?

nope she wasn't a sailfin. i know the pic is fuzzy, but she didn't even look close to that red sailfin. thank's for tryin though

[PEMfish]

Well, there are different looks too `em with different ways of shooting. Definitely an odd fish.

[Fionn_Matt325]

i went to my LFS and saw a tank of red sailfins, and though pretty similar they weren't just a more common name for Blood Mollies. the only thing similar which made me question it were the red eyes.
However the blood mollies have the white-ish bellies, are more defined red-orange than red-gold, eyes were white with red iris's, and the sailfin being seemingly a male trait was not present on the blood males. also i don't know if was just part of my imagination, but the scales also seemed more fine and blended.
But as i said i found them at two different stores cities apart under the same name, so it wasn't just a one time fluke hybrid that someone brought in once.
Once i get my fresh tank set up and settled i'll see if my LFS that had them before could order some.
thanks for your help though PEM.