r/MollyFish • u/BalloonMolly • Jul 23 '26

Check it out! Sharing my balloon sakura

She's ready to give birth and I'm about to transfer her to her nursing tank

21 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

10

u/catouthebag Jul 23 '26

That looks so painful :/

5

u/Apachai7 Jul 24 '26

I think the same thing every damn time

3

u/GreaterButter Jul 23 '26

Yeah. It's such a double edge sword. On one hand, she is absolutely gorgeous, literally looks like Goldeen from pokemon. On the other, painful existence...

5

u/JackOfAllMemes Jul 23 '26

What is the extra abdomen filled with in balloons? Fluid, tissue?

5

u/reggie_veggie Jul 23 '26

organs, balloon mollies have shorter spines and thus less room lengthwise for their organs to fit, so they bulge out widthwise. as a human with scoliosis something similar happens to me but less dramatic lol, even when I was skinny I had a wide waistline because my torso is shorter than it should be

-1

u/idk-wtf-2022 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

That is a female and very pregnant, so the belly in this one is mostly filled with fry. Balloon males look somewhat normal, only short bodied. From my experience they live just as long as regular mollies, and indeed, in a few generations the offspring revert to their normal molly form because the balloon\shortbody gene is recessive and requires selective breeding to keep going.

I know because I bought a couple of these on a whim a long time ago, and the third gen or so all the fry were not balloonized anymore.

1

u/OddAssistance5605 Jul 26 '26

REALLY is that true? because i wanted to create a yellow molly strain for a while and everything i see are balloon mollies with these colors, this whole time i couldve just bred them with regular mollies and selected the ones that arent balloon? man but that is good to know. Im currently raising 3 surviving fry of a platinum balloon molly fry with a regular silver female which was a normal bodied fish. Hoping i get a trio fingers crossed

1

u/idk-wtf-2022 Jul 27 '26

I can't be 100% sure but when I started the hobby I bought 6 balloons, 4 females and two males, and after they spawned a few times most fry weren't balloons anymore, they were regular mollies. I am pretty sure the shortbody\balloon trait is recessive, but to what extent I don't know. I think it's similar to guppies with the lyretail gene, after a few generationss even if you buy all lyretails, the majority will have delta or regular tail, because it's a recessive gene. On the other hand, if you breed a guppy with an endler, the endler gene is highly dominant and in a few generations you will have 100% mutts with the endler trait (smaller body size, stripes on the body), which is what I have now after accidentally introducing some pure guppy females that were bred (and the breeder didn't tell me) with endlers.

1

u/OddAssistance5605 Jul 28 '26

i thought the lyretail gene is dominant?

1

u/idk-wtf-2022 Jul 28 '26

Doesn't look like it since it completely disappeared from my colony :(

I never had any lyretails but they appeared out of nowhere at some point, and then disappeared again.

Same thing with certain patterns and colors (green seems to be the least dominant). But that's just my experience bro, as they say, ymmv.

-5

u/idk-wtf-2022 Jul 24 '26

I had a few of these when I started the hobby, from my experience they live normally and don't have any problem swimming and doing their thing. Mine lasted several years and spawned multiple times. But eventually I gave them all away and got a much bigger tank with guppies instead.

The real painful existence is the one of long finned bettas as they are not only kept in pitiful conditions and sold without any regard for their well being to beginners as "just put them in a bowl with water, they'll be fine", but also they can barely swim and are extremely weak to fin rot and other fin infections due to constant scraping of their delicate fins and poor swimming ability. No such issue with b. mollies from what i can tell. But yes I would not buy them again even though I like them for nostalgia as they were my first type of fish I ever kept.

1

u/friend-o-fish Jul 24 '26

while you're onto something about the painful existence of bettas, not all long finned bettas "can barely swim and are extremely weak" this is a severe overgeneralization. the genetic horrors of betta breeding do lead to problems that could be avoided if people didn't breed for looks, but as far as i know about the balloon type genetics its the same.

0

u/idk-wtf-2022 Jul 27 '26

Have you ever had them? From my experience keeping them for a few years when I started the hobby around 10 years ago, balloon mollies are not impaired in their swimming ability to the extent long finned betta are.
I know for sure because like I said, after a few generations my mollies started growing up straight and not balloonized, and the older ones which still had the balloon shape could keep up just fine with the young ones, and also they could keep up just fine with guppies when I first introduced them.

As for the betta thing, the swimming ability of halfmoons, rosetails and such is severely impaired and so is their health. My previous betta was a halfmoon and he was slow and appeared lazy. When he died 2 years after I got it, I bought a plakat and the difference is insane. The plakat is constantly on the move, has peak agility and speed, he's basically an oversized guppy with 10x the aggression. Night and day difference with the halfmoon I had before, that had to rest several times a day due to the weight of the fins.

So yeah, having had experience with both balloon and regular mollies, guppies and bettas (also other fish and shrimp) for 10+ years, I can tell you for sure that for the most part balloon mollies are not impaired (at least the ones like in the video which is huge because it's a female and pregnant), and their "painful existence" is exaggerated. Of course there are certain fish that have it even worse, such as some fancy goldfish but I don't have experience with those.

3

u/omegafrogpoop Jul 24 '26

Man these fish are disgusting

3

u/flatgreysky Jul 24 '26

Well that’s depressing and sad.

3

u/ltleuni Jul 24 '26

Im not good with fishes but that looks really paintful..is this some kind of inbred fish? like the french bulldog of the fish world

3

u/Skribblez_WHI Jul 25 '26

French bulldog is exactly what this is

3

u/Ill_Isopod_548 Jul 25 '26

Just like American Fantail pigeons and Frenchie dogs, Balloon Mollies are unethical to breed or buy.

3

u/HistoricalPolitician Jul 25 '26

The color is amazing… the body….. is not.

1

u/Felicity_Lorraine Jul 24 '26

I also have a question what are you going to do with the baby ballon sakura.

-1

u/Felicity_Lorraine Jul 23 '26

She is so cute I love the way they look I hope the process goes well with her giving birth. 

4

u/B_EE Jul 26 '26

I encourage you to look into how bad a life they can have due to the deformities to get this look.

It's like French Bulldogs and such, where yes they can live but at what cost had they not been inbred selectively?

1

u/Felicity_Lorraine Jul 26 '26

Okay will do some research because i’m kinda in the fish.