Black Molly = Black Molly?

19. January 2019

Sometimes we also take a closer look at the everyday species; one tends to judge fish like the Black Molly in trade only according to the aspects: 1. are the fish healthy and stable? and 2. are they well grown? 

But Black Molly is certainly not the same as Black Molly. Depending on which wild species dominates in the respective strain – as is well known, Black Mollys were created by multiple crosses of different species, whereby the blacklings (Melanos) that already occur sporadically in nature were crossed into existing aquarium strains of Molly species – they sometimes differ considerably from each other.

Currently we offer e.g. Black Mollys from Sri Lanka, which are very similar to the wild species Poecilia latipinna. Especially beautiful here are dominant males, which have a red seam along the magnificent dorsal fin.

Another Black Molly form we get from Vietnam. It is closer to the species Poecilia sphenops and P. mexicana, the dorsal fin is much smaller than in the one mentioned before. The alpha males develop an orange border along the caudal fin, which is very attractive.

Not as Black Molly, but as Black Velifera one calls the splendid animals, which come after the species Poecilia velifera. They are clearly larger than the other Black Mollys. 

For our customers: Black Mollys from Sri Lanka have code 432003, those from Vietnam 432132 and black velifera 433004 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer