Tropical Aquarium Fish

Poecilia molinesia sphenops is a very popular fish, known as molly. It is spread in Central America from Mexico to Columbia, where it lives fresh waters. In the aquarium water you`ll have to add one spoon with salt at every 4 liters of water, without this salt the fish are very sensitive to diseases, especially `shakings`. This disease manifests with shakings around a vertical axe which goes through the middle of the body. The male has a slender prolonged body while the female`s is stronger and stumpy. The dorsal fin has 8-11 rays. The tail is convex. The males can reach 8 cm length and the females can get larger, about 12 cm length. In general, the fish is colored in olive-brown with silvery flanks. On the flanks it has 4-6 lines made from spots colored in orange or brown. There also are transversal lines, which are marked, colored in black. The dorsal fin is speckled with black and has a yellow hem. The base of the tail is colored in ultramarine blue; in the upper part it is orange-yellow with a black hem. There are other color varieties; one of them is the black molly. Beside the normal tail variety, there is a lyre tail variety. The optimal temperature is 24-28° C. They are viviparous fish; the female gives birth to living fry.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 28th, 2006 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Uncategorized aquarium fish, Livebearers aquarium fish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.