overboard

I had a female silver molly, and one female and one male dalmation molly. Both females dropped fry on the same night, and I pulled all three out the next morning. About six months later I have eight juveniles. One was silver from the start, and now is about 70% covered with black spots. One turned silver at two months, and has about ten black spots. Of the rest, five of six have some spots or dusting, but they have no color, except sometimes a yellow blush underneath. The tank they are in has a light substrate. I just moved two into a new tank to cycle it. It has black flourite. Within hours, the fish were dark grey with black spots and yellow chests! Is this a juvenile thing? I have been waiting to trade them in at a LFS until they color up, but will they, or is this it?

 

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hamsterman

The quick change in coloration you observed was, as you stated, due to the change in substrate darkness which influenced how the fish looked. With juvenile fish it is usually best to wait till they are a few months old to see what their adult coloration will be like.

Jareardy

^ I had my adult molly change from silver/black splotches to completely black when I paired him with a completely black female. So it doesn't depend solely on the substrate.

JBarlak

The only way I was able to get pure silver fry was to mate 2 pure silver lyre tails. I had a horny male dalmatian mate with a silver female and got fry which were silver to start and within 2 months were all dalmatian pattern, starting with spots at first.

 

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