Hey everyone,

I know that I've asked the question before about how you could tell if a balloon molly was pregnant. I still can't quite figure it out. This girl had a batch of fry shortly after I bought her but I haven't seen any since. For the past few days though she has been acting really weird. She normally likes to swim around the tank and is a very active eater but now she just lays at the bottom with her fins clamped. She seems to have a little difficulty breathing but I have an airstone in the tank which puts out a lot of bubbles and agitates the water along with the filter. She hasn't eaten much and my male molly pesters her. Could this be a sign she's ready to have babies? It's so difficult to tell where's she's all black. While at walmart today I saw male black balloon mollies and they looked like they were pregnant but mine doesn't look that fat. A few minutes ago I placed her in a net breeder and I'm going to keep an eye on her. What are the signs that a molly is ready to give birth or is it a sign she could be sick?? I'll post a couple pics.

The above pic shows her actively swimming around the tank. The next pic isn't that clear but shows her in her net. I know they're probably too blurry to pick much sense of them.

When mine are ready to give birth they will usually hang around any plants and not do to much swimming, but none of mine have stayed at the bottom like that. If you have males in the tank with females you should be getting fry about every 45 days.

Well this morning I got up and Bubbles was much more active in the net. Then I saw the sweetest thing. The male molly was peering in the net at her and she was looking at him and she seemed so lonely. I took her out of the net and they started playfully swimming around together. I don't care what people may say about fish not having any memory or feelings but those two missed each other. It was so cute. I am going to keep an eye out on her and if she starts acting weird again I will try the net again. In the meantime I should probably get a few more plants for the tank. I only have a couple fake ones in there for the time being. It's strange that she has only dropped one batch of fry in the past 5 or 6 months, but if she's happy then I'm ok with that:)

Update: I think my molly might have parasites. Her feces are stringy and white and the male molly has started laying on the bottom as well but every now and then he'll quickly scrape against the plants and ornaments in the tank. I'm figuring it could be something leftover from the ich I had been battling a few weeks ago. It appeared that it was all gone but I guess I had not been treating the tank long enough. Today I bought Quick Cure because I read it was pretty effective against ich and parasites. I'm hoping that it will also cure the white/grey spots on my neon tetras. It looks as though someone rubbed off the red color on their tails with an eraser.

mollies when preggers..usually get diseases quite easily...and if it's fecies are stringy..it usually means that it's suffering from a consterpational disease...where it will blow up like a balloon cause quite simply it cant crap! and it will die..

Lets hope its not the case!! and that..it has strong healthy fry

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately a few days ago she died leaving no fry behind. She was lying on her side with that white stuff hanging out. The male was acting the same way lying lifeless on the bottom. He died the day after. His belly was sunken in but other than that he showed no symptoms of disease. No deaths since, but my 2 neon tetras have faded drastically so I figure they're next to go. I've tried medicating this tank with every medicine that I can get around here, aquarium salt, raising the temp, scrubbing, water changes, vaccuuming the gravel, but nothing seems to be helping. The fish seem to be just dying off one by one.