Well today, the DH and I held a trial against our Molly named Puppy. She was regrettably found guilt in the murder of our betta "Toothless, the spineless wonder", as well as found guilt of in the attempted murder of the guppies Franscene and Bubbles. She was likewise found guilt on 10 accounts of child abuse, endangerment and neglect. With a heavy heart, as she showed no remorse for her actions, she was given the death penalty.

So much for Mollies being a community fish as the pet store assured us they were. She became quite the bully after her mate died (and may or may not have had a hand in that as well, but there was insufficient evidence to convict) Regardless she was by far the most aggressive molly I've ever owned so I'm not sure if there was something psychologically wrong with her or not. I always seem to end up with the "special" animals.

However some research did show that Mollies are notorious fin-nippers which may be why she was so aggressive towards our betta and guppies as they're the fancy tailed guppies... the temptation was just too great for her I suppose, but in either event she ended up harassing several fish and one to its death, we had to remove her before she killed the rest of them.

And already the tank seems so much more relaxed, the remaining fish looking about as happy as fish can look with their lacking facial expression. Calm has been restored we can say that much. At least for now, I still have 10 molly babies that haven't grown up enough yet to start harassing the other fish and now I'm left to wonder if they won't because they've grown up with them, or if they're going to follow in their mother's footsteps.

Hopefully my father will get his own fish tank up and running soon so I won't have to execute anymore fish. At which time it'll be off to the store to look at some more guppies, and just guppies (well maybe another betta might get thrown into the mix if I can find one like Toothless again). Then again, we may not have to buy anymore guppies as Franscene is pregnant once more and should be going into labor any day now, if she's not already in labor. Hard to tell, she keeps swimming away anytime I think I can see if she's got a baby coming out or not, and there's too many hiding places to really notice the first couple of births with her.