What Kinds of Fishes Are Compatible With Black Mollies?

Schooling fish that are compatible with black mollies include many community fishes that are safe in small numbers. Some, however, can be dangerous in large numbers, so it is important to keep the number of fish balanced in your aquarium. For instance, if you have one black mollie and twenty zebra danios, there is a high liklihood that that the zebras will overtake and eat the mollie. On the other hand, if there are five zebras in your tank and five mollies, they will get along without any apparent problems.

  1. Zebra Danios

    • Zebra Danios, while being carniverous aquarium fish that can be dangerous to other fish when in large schools, are peaceful fish when kept singly or in groups of less than five members. In order to prevent problems, choose danios that are smaller than your mollies. Fish of equal size may chase each other and damage fins. Also, danios should not be included in aquariums where you wish to breed black mollies, as the danios will quickly devour the young in just a few days.

    Red Velvet Swordtails

    • Red velvet swordtails are peaceful additions to any aquarium, and will for the most part completely ignore the mollies in your tank. Like mollies, swords are also live-bearing fish. As with any other addition to the aquarium, swords will attempt to eat young, newly-born black mollies. On the other hand, black mollies will often eat not only their own young, but also those of the swords. If you intend to raise the young, you should consider having a separate tank in place to raise them until they are at least one inch in length.

    Blue Gourami

    • Blue gourami are large, peaceful fish for the home aquarium that require little in the way of care and are not interested in the other fish in the aquarium in most cases. Typically, blue gourami will grow to about 4 inches in length. Although they prefer slightly acidic water during spawning, they are well suited to the black mollie's slightly brackish water needs if you do not intend to breed them.

    Bala Sharks

    • Bala sharks are not in fact, a breed of shark, but rather are a type of minnow. They derive their shark name from their silvery bodies and shark-shaped profile. Like other aquarium fish, bala sharks will quickly devour any of the mollie's young that they can chase down, so if you intend to breed the mollies, avoid adding bala sharks to the tank. Also, choose bala sharks that are the same size or slightly smaller than your mollies, and only introduce half as many bala sharks to the tank as you have mollies. One of the best aspects of having bala sharks in the community tank is their ability to let you know beforehand when diseases are forming in the tank. When you see a bala shark rubbing its scales against a rock vigorously, it means that an outbreak of ich is impending. Black mollies are particularly susceptible to disease, and this advance warning can help you to diagnose and treat diseases prior to serious infection of the whole tank.