SW Molly

[bender77]

After reading on hear about some people having SW Mollies I thought I would give it a try. Yesterday I bought one and slow drip acclimated it for 8 hrs. She looked good, no stress. I put her in my QT tank and she looked good. Lived overnight, ate a little this morning and was dead this evening. Did I do something wrong? Any words of advice? My LFS has 5 for $5 right now and I would love to have a couple, but I'm not going to keep trying if it's going to kill them.

 

[pete159]

some may live and a some may die. just like any fish you add. I added two, and they did fine for a week when i asked myself, ..."why did i add these two loser freshwater fishes to my nice saltwater tank?"
Are mollies really so nice that we need to add them to a saltwater tank? maybe if you want to use the babies as food, but other then that I would vote that there are tons of better saltwater fish to add.
Add 2 percula clowns, or 2 cardinals. if you want mollies then put them in a freshwater tank with some guppies, thats what i did, but in my saltwater tank its only saltwater fish.

 

[alix2.0]

i agree. but i dont have algae problems.

 

[locoyo386]

HI there,
Originally Posted by bender77
http:///forum/post/3079863
After reading on hear about some people having SW Mollies I thought I would give it a try. Yesterday I bought one and slow drip acclimated it for 8 hrs. She looked good, no stress. I put her in my QT tank and she looked good. Lived overnight, ate a little this morning and was dead this evening. Did I do something wrong? Any words of advice? My LFS has 5 for $5 right now and I would love to have a couple, but I'm not going to keep trying if it's going to kill them.
One thought, you might try rasing the salt level way slower and see if that works. Also note that they do better in waters with a pH level of 7.5-8 and a low salinity of 1.012-1.017.

 

[meowzer]

I bought 4 mollies already sw ready...1 came dead...2 disappeared and I have one...THE ONLY REASON I bought them was cause I heard they eat hair algae...
They were $.50 each....FYI

 

[sepulatian]

Originally Posted by bender77
http:///forum/post/3079863
After reading on hear about some people having SW Mollies I thought I would give it a try. Yesterday I bought one and slow drip acclimated it for 8 hrs. She looked good, no stress. I put her in my QT tank and she looked good. Lived overnight, ate a little this morning and was dead this evening. Did I do something wrong? Any words of advice? My LFS has 5 for $5 right now and I would love to have a couple, but I'm not going to keep trying if it's going to kill them.
Mollies are sold in fresh water. They can live in brackish and eventualy salt. You cannot acclimate them in one day. A fish that is used to saltwater cannot be acclimated back from hyposalinity, which is an SG of 1.009, in under a week. How in the world can a fish go from 0 salt into full salt in a matter few a few hours? The fish can't. Their kidneys cannot take it. Don't buy them just to be algae eaters. Find out why you have the algae. You can buy inverts to eat it, if need be. If you seriously want mollies then you will need to slowly convert them into saltwater over several weeks to a month. It can be done faster but the fish is not likely to live long.

 

[cranberry]

Just sharing my experiences, not disagreeing with any data. I had a bunch of molly tanks and good 100 mollies at one point. I would drip them over in a day. The last one I had i just threw in the tank and he lived over a year.

 

[mkroher]

Originally Posted by sepulatian
http:///forum/post/3080145
Mollies are sold in fresh water. They can live in brackish and eventualy salt. You cannot acclimate them in one day. A fish that is used to saltwater cannot be acclimated back from hyposalinity, which is an SG of 1.009, in under a week. How in the world can a fish go from 0 salt into full salt in a matter few a few hours? The fish can't. Their kidneys cannot take it. Don't buy them just to be algae eaters. Find out why you have the algae. You can buy inverts to eat it, if need be. If you seriously want mollies then you will need to slowly convert them into saltwater over several weeks to a month. It can be done faster but the fish is not likely to live long.
+1

death from osmotic shock

 

[windlasher]

Originally Posted by Cranberry
http:///forum/post/3080209
Just sharing my experiences, not disagreeing with any data. I had a bunch of molly tanks and good 100 mollies at one point. I would drip them over in a day. The last one I had i just threw in the tank and he lived over a year.
Have to say that before I knew better... I cycled my tank with mollies. I took them home and dropped them in. they lived in there for 4 months until I took them out. Strange..

 

[bender77]

Originally Posted by sepulatian
http:///forum/post/3080145
Mollies are sold in fresh water. They can live in brackish and eventualy salt. You cannot acclimate them in one day. A fish that is used to saltwater cannot be acclimated back from hyposalinity, which is an SG of 1.009, in under a week. How in the world can a fish go from 0 salt into full salt in a matter few a few hours? The fish can't. Their kidneys cannot take it. Don't buy them just to be algae eaters. Find out why you have the algae. You can buy inverts to eat it, if need be. If you seriously want mollies then you will need to slowly convert them into saltwater over several weeks to a month. It can be done faster but the fish is not likely to live long.
This makes since, I didn't really think about it. I was just reading people doing it over 6 or so hours so I thought I would give it a try. And just to clear up any misconceptions, I just wanted one in the tank, it had nothing to do with algae.

 

[jimmy40741]

I also started with mollies from my freshwater tank (not to cycle, the tank was already cycled). I drip acclimated 2 for about an hour and they did fine. I just dropped 2 more in and they did fine. I ended up with 7 in my tank and all lived for a couple of months until I took them out. And just as a side note, they all lived when I dropped them back into the freshwater tank. So my own experience totally contradicts any long term acclimation theory.
As far as the hair algea thing goes, I tried that too about a year ago. I had an outbreak and dropped one of my mollies into the tank and it never touched the hair algea. After about 2 weeks of watching it just swim around and eat flake food I pulled it out and dropped it back into my freshwater tank. No harm in either move btw.

 

[cleve_seahorse]

I have 3 salty mollies in my seahorse tanks , and all are doing great....the seahorses eat the mollie fry

I acclimated them for about 8-10 hours to salt , thats it

 

[sepulatian]

Eh, some mollies are weird I guess

 

[coral keeper]

You can put the mollies in your sump/fuge so that you don't see em in your DT and so that when they have babies its free fish food.

 

[elementzx]

i put a mollie in my SW tank once i first got the salinity correct, just to get it cycling. Only acclimated it for about 2 hours (not drip) and he has been alive for about 2 months now. When i went to buy one the LFS expert said that she had heard that black mollies do the best in saltwater, so thats what i got. Never had any problems with him until yesterday night when i bought 5 green chromis, the mollie likes to chase them around and attack them so im probably going to get rid of him unless he settles down

 

[beaslbob]

I use and recommend mollys as dither or cycle fish especially for new hobbiests. And also to keep the bioload up and a tank that has been otherwise empty. Although they are sold a FW fish they actually IMHO do better is full salt or at least 1/2 salt environments.
The reason I recommend mollys is they are inexpensive and take time to aclimate. So if a newbie can go through that they are much better equipped to aclimate the expensive marine fish.
that said they actually are too peaceful for full marine fish and do not seem to do well with those fish.
my .02