Failed molly experiment: any tips for success?

[zalick]

I thought I was rescuing 5 black mollies from Petco..... Turns out I'm the bad guy!

I slow drip acclimated 5 black mollies over the course of 36 hours. I put 4 in my DT and one in a 20 long QT.

The one in the QT immediately went to a bottom corner and stayed for a few hours then disappeared. I wouldn't call it a high flow QT at all.

This morning he's swimming/floating near the top. I don't think he'll make it.

The 4 in the DT took to the tank right away. They were swimming all over eating and picking at everything. They were struggling a bit with the flow so I turned it down. With my rocks there are plenty of spaces with very mild flow.

This morning one was dead pinned to a PH. Another was dead pinned to overflow. A third made it to the sump and is struggling. The 4th is MIA.


All the mollies were about 1.5-2". MUCH smaller than I expected

My best guess is they simply tired out from my flow. There is a mild gyre flow with some surging. They seemed to take the salt transition just fine.

I read so many posts of people acclimating to salt by tossing straight in all the way to multiple weeks. I figured 36 hrs would be good....

I feel terrible because I hate killing fish due to my mistakes.

If I track down full grown mollies will they handle flow better?

 

[lapin]

@Subsea

 

[Beau_B]

I tried this 3x from Petco/PetSmart and failed within 24hrs. Long acclimation, short, somewhere between.

I think those mollys are so far removed from the wild they aren’t actually salt suitable anymore. Just a theory.

Picked up some from a local breeder who has stock from “the old days” and breeds in brackish. 6/6 on those, but I did put them into 1.009 and brought it up over a weeks’ time.

I don’t have a solution, but at least you know it’s happened to someone else.

 

[zalick]

I tried this 3x from Petco/PetSmart and failed within 24hrs. Long acclimation, short, somewhere between.

I think those mollys are so far removed from the wild they aren’t actually salt suitable anymore. Just a theory.

Picked up some from a local breeder who has stock from “the old days” and breeds in brackish. 6/6 on those, but I did put them into 1.009 and brought it up over a weeks’ time.

I don’t have a solution, but at least you know it’s happened to someone else.

Were your successful ones tiny? Did they handle the flow ok?

I'll try to track down a local breeder. I'm in the Portland Oregon area if any breeders reads this

 

[GrapevineReefs]

I have a tank where I breed saltwater mollies, I personally use them as opposed to damsels, which I hate, as the first occupants of newly cycled tanks and they’ll help with the ugly phase as well. So in my experience buying a ton of petco,pet smart, LFS mollies is that you will always have some percentage of die off in the first few days no matter if you drip and temp acclimate or just throw them in the tank from a bag of fresh water. The ways to help them have their best chance at full acclimation, in my personal experience, is to turn off all wave makers and extra power heads anything that a dumb inbred mollie can commit suicide on, if you can’t do that then a breeder box or net really helps my mortality in the initial days. Mollies are dumb and are used to absolutely no flow if they want to graze on algae in a high flow area they misjudge it quite often and god forbid you have a tube worm or anemone they seem to not do well around such animals at first. If you notice them struggling after the acclimation I’ve had success rushing them back into freshwater, treating them with freshwater meds And fattening them up, then trying to drip them back into salt. Also I believe Jake Adams talked about it but I truly have success with the lighter colored mollies rather than the dark. A solid white mollie IMO has a much better chance to make it than a jet black mollies but that’s just given my observations. Once the first generation of saltwater mollies are born in the saltwater they are much healthier, smarter, and act much more like reef fish

 

[zalick]

I have a tank where I breed saltwater mollies, I personally use them as opposed to damsels, which I hate, as the first occupants of newly cycled tanks and they’ll help with the ugly phase as well. So in my experience buying a ton of petco,pet smart, LFS mollies is that you will always have some percentage of die off in the first few days no matter if you drip and temp acclimate or just throw them in the tank from a bag of fresh water. The ways to help them have their best chance at full acclimation, in my personal experience, is to turn off all wave makers and extra power heads anything that a dumb inbred mollie can commit suicide on, if you can’t do that then a breeder box or net really helps my mortality in the initial days. Mollies are dumb and are used to absolutely no flow if they want to graze on algae in a high flow area they misjudge it quite often and god forbid you have a tube worm or anemone they seem to not do well around such animals at first. If you notice them struggling after the acclimation I’ve had success rushing them back into freshwater, treating them with freshwater meds And fattening them up, then trying to drip them back into salt. Also I believe Jake Adams talked about it but I truly have success with the lighter colored mollies rather than the dark. A solid white mollie IMO has a much better chance to make it than a jet black mollies but that’s just given my observations. Once the first generation of saltwater mollies are born in the saltwater they are much healthier, smarter, and act much more like reef fish

Thanks. I really want to do this successfully without killing tons... They are such neat fish.

I could definitely setup a separate low flow tank to get them settled in and fattened up before moving to the DT. Do they grow quickly?

 

[Smokeshow]

I put 2 black mollies in my 75 after my initial fishless cycle completed. It's been 7 months and their still doing great. Got them from a lfs. I don't get anything live from petco anymore.

 

[zalick]

I put 2 black mollies in my 75 after my initial fishless cycle completed. It's been 7 months and their still doing great. Got them from a lfs. I don't get anything live from petco anymore.

Were they tiny? Did you acclimate over a long period?

 

[Smokeshow]

Their about 2" did a 1 hour drip

 

[Rmckoy]

I just added 3 to my mixed reef .
they are weird watching them struggle to swim but later relaxing at the top corner .
They do swim down , pick at the rocks for a bit and back to the corner where there is less flow .

 

[GrapevineReefs]

Thanks. I really want to do this successfully without killing tons... They are such neat fish.

I could definitely setup a separate low flow tank to get them settled in and fattened up before moving to the DT. Do they grow quickly?

they get bigger than they do in freshwater imo. It also Depends on how much your feeding as they are little swimming garbage disposals. One thing I notice is that the second generation is always incredibly healthy I don’t loose much if any of the babies that art born

 

[innovusaquaculture]

I converted 5 dalmatian mollies for a tide pool tank. It has very low flow with one anemone. After two months they are all doing fantastically. I took one of the females out and put it in a high flow 75 gallon mixed reef and she seems to be doing just fine after a week. There are no other fish in the tank it is just getting started and connected to the other tanks and shares water. There is pleanty of ugly algae for her to eat. I wanted to see if she would bear young in this tank and if any would survive.

I drip acclimated them over ~2 weeks initially.

I am considering converting a group of them in my newest tank for the cycle. I am in the process of QTing everything and going follow on all my tanks and moving some of then around and finishing a few projects.

 

[anthonygf]

I acclimated 3 dalmation Mollies for an hour or so around 2 months ago, lost one female and the remaining male and female are doing well and hanging out with my 2 clowns and 4 blue-green chromis since. Now they are almost totally black, they were a beautiful dalmation look pattern, so upset. My clowns protect the chromis and mollies, keeps the bullies away, 2 three striped damsels. I got them at Petco.

 

[GainesvilleReef]

Once the mollies are grown and get accustomed to the flow they are quite good swimmers. I have converted a few batches. Mollies we buy grow up in low flow tanks. They need time to adjust. I also think the drip acclimation method, which is what I have used every time, may actually be creating an ammonia toxicity issue. I think this can be aggravated by prolonged acclimation. We may be burning their gills. These fish live in estuaries in the wild and change salinity every 6 hours. I am typically done acclimating in about 4 hours. That being said, after the first set I started keeping their offspring and I have populated my other frag tanks. These tanks are high flow and the mollies do fine.

Here is a video of my molly tank now.

Molly Tank

 

[Beau_B]

Were your successful ones tiny? Did they handle the flow ok?

I'll try to track down a local breeder. I'm in the Portland Oregon area if any breeders reads this

Small, yes. Maybe an 1" and thus far flow hasn't been an issue. One of them is pregnant now, and they're living in the refugium until called to duty.

 

[zalick]

Wow, these pictures show fish MUCH bigger than mine. I wonder if mine were simply too young, in addition to all the risks inherently.

 

[zalick]

Once the mollies are grown and get accustomed to the flow they are quite good swimmers. I have converted a few batches. Mollies we buy grow up in low flow tanks. They need time to adjust. I also think the drip acclimation method, which is what I have used every time, may actually be creating an ammonia toxicity issue. I think this can be aggravated by prolonged acclimation. We may be burning their gills. These fish live in estuaries in the wild and change salinity every 6 hours. I am typically done acclimating in about 4 hours. That being said, after the first set I started keeping their offspring and I have populated my other frag tanks. These tanks are high flow and the mollies do fine.

Here is a video of my molly tank now.

Molly Tank

About how old are those guys? They look about twice the weight of the ones I tried.

 

[anthonygf]

Wow, these pictures show fish MUCH bigger than mine. I wonder if mine were simply too young, in addition to all the risks inherently.

Possible, mine were small as well. I also did not lower my flow in the 75 gallon, they will find a safe spot with low flow.

 

[arking_mark]

So I started my 108gal tank with Mollies as well. No issues. I got the "Sunset" Mollies from LFS and drip acclimated them for several hours with a heater and air stone. Added them to the tank (no flow adjustment). They had ZERO issues and are competing with well all the reef fish. They have been with me now for close to 3 months.

 

[Joe's Coral Reef]

I have 5 mollies I converted to saltwater. I slowly acclimated them over 2 weeks. its been 2 months and they are doing great. Since I was uneducated when I bought them the pet store was nice enough to give me 4 males and 1 female, which from what I now is bad. It's stressfull on the females and can cause death if you have too many males and not enough females. I've since seperated her and one male into another tank to give her a break, they were relentlessly chasing her around like she owed them money.