Freshwater Molly EXPERIENCE

[Mariette]

Ok R2Rers. I’ve done a TON of reading both on here and off and I’m asking for your EXPERIENCE. I’ve read up on the theory. I’ve got fish in QT while DT goes fallow. I’m considering using the black molly canary test in each aquarium.

1 - I WILL KEEP ANY SURVIVING MOLLY as a pet and will treat and care for it accordingly. Please no guilt trips.

2 - How have you acclimated FW Molly to SW? General consensus on here is 4-6 hrs. Some say 24-48 hrs. General consensus on www is to just chuck em in SW after a float acclimation. What have you done? How many times? What was your experience?

3 - I’ve read you should use 2-3 Mollies. Anyone k ow why? I was hoping to use 1 for qt and 1 for DT and letting me live out their lives together in DT if all goes well.

 

[ngoodermuth]

Ok R2Rers. I’ve done a TON of reading both on here and off and I’m asking for your EXPERIENCE. I’ve read up on the theory. I’ve got fish in QT while DT goes fallow. I’m considering using the black molly canary test in each aquarium.

1 - I WILL KEEP ANY SURVIVING MOLLY as a pet and will treat and care for it accordingly. Please no guilt trips.

2 - How have you acclimated FW Molly to SW? General consensus on here is 4-6 hrs. Some say 24-48 hrs. General consensus on www is to just chuck em in SW after a float acclimation. What have you done? How many times? What was your experience?

3 - I’ve read you should use 2-3 Mollies. Anyone k ow why? I was hoping to use 1 for qt and 1 for DT and letting me live out their lives together in DT if all goes well.

I think the minimum successful acclimation period is going to be around 12 hours. I’ve not done this first hand, but I’ve witnessed several accounts of them dying after shorter acclimation periods.

I think the 2-3 is just to account for losses due to acclimation stress, and to give you a better chance at observing specific parasite symptoms (some fish are overcome before there is even outward signs, and some fish might present a bit differently than we are used to seeing) My assumption is that having several at once reduces the risk of having to go through the process multiple times for definitive results. I don’t think it’s a requirement, per say.

 

[Hermie]

1. Over a span of weeks, starting off at about 1.003 SG and moving all the way to 1.025
2. The difference between 4-6 hours and 24 hours is negligible. They need more than a single day for their gills to adapt to the changes. Especially if you are going to be using them as "guinea pigs" then they need to be at their optimal health or you will possibly get false negatives in your data.
3. I took FW mollies and put them in low salinity Brackish water. I then converted the Brackish (1.003 SG) to full marine salinity over the period of 2 weeks.
4. I've done it once with multiple mollies and they all survived and reproduced in the marine salinity environment.
   
5. The experience was good because I did not rush it.

 

[Mariette]

Guess I shouldn’t be surprised that there’s more than 1 opinion out there on this lol. Thx guys

 

[ajhudson15]

I acclimated mine in an hour and had none die even after a year. its more or less how that exact fish handles it

 

[Mariette]

I acclimated mine in an hour and had none die even after a year. its more or less how that exact fish handles it

Hmmmm that’s kinda what I wanted to hear lol. How many have you acclimated this way?

 

[Hermie]

It's not an opinion to say that it's very stressful on Mollies to place them from Freshwater into Saltwater within a single day and that it results in fish mortality.

It's scientific fact that the survival rate is lower than a slow acclimation period. The best thing is to acclimate them into Brackish for at least 1 full day and then acclimate them into Saltwater.

The survival rates for different salinity-transfer regimes
When the SW-acclimated sailfin molly was transferred directly to FW, all the individuals survived (SA/F). In contrast, when the FW-acclimated sailfin molly was transferred directly to SW, only half of the fish survived (Chi-square test,P\0.001; FA/S). However, when the FW-acclimated sailfin molly was pre-acclimated to BW for 12 and 24 h before a direct transfer to SW, the survival rates increased significantly to 83 and100%, respectively (FA/B12/S and FA/B24/S).

Their water:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/41686554.pdf

 

[Mariette]

It's not an opinion to say that it's very stressful on Mollies to place them from Freshwater into Saltwater within a single day and that it results in fish mortality.

It's scientific fact that the survival rate is lower than a slow acclimation period. The best thing is to acclimate them into Brackish for at least 1 full day and then acclimate them into Saltwater.

Their water:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/41686554.pdf

Thank you. I’ll have a read through the links you posted.

 

[ajhudson15]

It's not an opinion to say that it's very stressful on Mollies to place them from Freshwater into Saltwater within a single day and that it results in fish mortality.

It's scientific fact that the survival rate is lower than a slow acclimation period. The best thing is to acclimate them into Brackish for at least 1 full day and then acclimate them into Saltwater.

Their water:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/41686554.pdf

So I probably had a better success rate because my lfs keeps their mollies in brackish already

Hmmmm that’s kinda what I wanted to hear lol. How many have you acclimated this way?

I would check and see if your lfs has them in brackish and if not probably need to do it longer but mine were quick and easy. Honestly ive probably done about 15 to 20 this way and only had about 3 die but that was due to them being picked on after a week ro so by the other sw fish. I use them because they breed extremely easy and it creates live food for some of the fish that will eat them like lions or other fish that like the "chase"

 

[Mariette]

I o

So I probably had a better success rate because my lfs keeps their mollies in brackish already

I would check and see if your lfs has them in brackish and if not probably need to do it longer but mine were quick and easy. Honestly ive probably done about 15 to 20 this way and only had about 3 die but that was due to them being picked on after a week ro so by the other sw fish. I use them because they breed extremely easy and it creates live food for some of the fish that will eat them like lions or other fish that like the "chase"[/QUOTE

I wonder if brackish water acclimated ones would be as suitable to use as canary fish? I’d think not. I dunno. But thx for the input

 

[Mariette]

It's not an opinion to say that it's very stressful on Mollies to place them from Freshwater into Saltwater within a single day and that it results in fish mortality.

It's scientific fact that the survival rate is lower than a slow acclimation period. The best thing is to acclimate them into Brackish for at least 1 full day and then acclimate them into Saltwater.

Their water:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/41686554.pdf

Am I reading this right? FW straight into BW for 12-24 hrs then straight into SW? Or take 12-24 hrs to acclimate to each?

 

[Hermie]

Am I reading this right? FW straight into BW for 12-24 hrs then straight into SW? Or take 12-24 hrs to acclimate to each?

They only state "direct" transfer between any given salinity, but to extrapolate I would do drip acclimation from FW to BW (15ppt) over the course of an hour or so and wait 24 hours.
Then transfer them to SW (35ppt), could just do direct transfer in a net, though it's not stated in the paper what "direct transfer" means.