Amazon molly

Care at a glance

Overview

Keep in 75 liters or larger at 20 to 28 C, pH 7.0 to 8.2, in hard water, ideally with a few sailfin, shortfin, or Atlantic mollies present so the Amazon mollies keep breeding. Feed a vegetable rich diet of spirulina flake and blanched greens plus some frozen foods. Peaceful and easy, though like all mollies it wants warmth, hard water, and clean conditions. It tolerates slightly brackish water. Females reach about 9 cm.

In the wild

A plain silvery to olive molly that is famous less for its looks than for how it breeds. Keep a group in a hard, alkaline tank with warm, stable water and open swimming space among plants. It grazes algae and takes most prepared foods readily. Because it is all female, you need a related molly to keep it reproducing.

Good to know

Poecilia formosa is a naturally occurring all female species that arose from an ancient cross between the Atlantic molly and the sailfin molly. It reproduces by gynogenesis, meaning females must mate with a male of a related molly to trigger development, but the male's genes are not passed on and the fry are clones of the mother. It was the first unisexual vertebrate ever described.

Did you know

Every Amazon molly is female, and a wild population persists only by borrowing sperm from males of other molly species that it then discards genetically.

Related species

• 

  Gill's molly

  Poecilia gillii

  3.9 in (10 cm)26 gal (100 L)72–86°F (22–30°C)

• 

  Shortfin molly

  Poecilia mexicana

  4.3 in (11 cm)32 gal (120 L)72–82°F (22–28°C)

• 

  Cauca molly

  Poecilia caucana

  2.4 in (6 cm)16 gal (60 L)77–86°F (25–30°C)

• 

  Guppy

  Poecilia reticulata

  2.4 in (6 cm)13 gal (50 L)64–82°F (18–28°C)

• 

  Melanzona Guppy

  Poecilia parae

  2 in (5 cm)15 gal (55 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)

• 

  Liberty molly

  Poecilia salvatoris

  3.9 in (10 cm)24 gal (90 L)72–82°F (22–28°C)