Mollies

[meganias123]

I've been reading a lot on people putting freshwater mollies in their tank to help clean and such... So I decided to try it out and see how it goes.
Will post later on how the progress goes ~ any personal experience pros/cons
If you've already tried this feel free to chime in on your own experience.
Any critiques are welcome x)

 

[tj w]

Will be following this one......interesting

 

[Dtackett]

mollies are a great addition to any reef tank. ive had great success with a 4 hour slow drip. the way I did this was I cut the top off of a 1 gallon jug, put the mollies and freshwater in the jug and put the jug in a 5 gallon bucket. then I added the drip line to the 1 gallon jug. once the 1 gallon is full it will overflow into the 5 gallon, once the 5 gallon is full I put the mollies into the tank. never lost a fish.

pros:
mollies devour most algae in a reef and will also clean up uneaten foods.
mollies will breed like crazy in saltwater, the fry are perfect treats for other fish and even your coral that catch them. the fry are rich in protein and if they are ate shortly after birth are extremely good for the fish.
mollies tend to get a little bigger and have more brilliant color in saltwater
you can raise the fry and sell them. I used to sell them for 7 bucks a pop out here.

cons:
mollies can be aggressive towards more gentle fish.
ive had 1 of about 20 mollies pick at soft coral (doesn't seem to be common)
mollies can become more susceptible to virus' in saltwater. ive never had one get sick or ich in a marine tank, but ive read a few articles that discuss this being a potential problem.

overall, mollies are a great addition to any reef tank, or to the sump as a sump cleaner.

 

[meganias123]

mollies are a great addition to any reef tank. ive had great success with a 4 hour slow drip. the way I did this was I cut the top off of a 1 gallon jug, put the mollies and freshwater in the jug and put the jug in a 5 gallon bucket. then I added the drip line to the 1 gallon jug. once the 1 gallon is full it will overflow into the 5 gallon, once the 5 gallon is full I put the mollies into the tank. never lost a fish.

pros:
mollies devour most algae in a reef and will also clean up uneaten foods.
mollies will breed like crazy in saltwater, the fry are perfect treats for other fish and even your coral that catch them. the fry are rich in protein and if they are ate shortly after birth are extremely good for the fish.
mollies tend to get a little bigger and have more brilliant color in saltwater
you can raise the fry and sell them. I used to sell them for 7 bucks a pop out here.

cons:
mollies can be aggressive towards more gentle fish.
ive had 1 of about 20 mollies pick at soft coral (doesn't seem to be common)
mollies can become more susceptible to virus' in saltwater. ive never had one get sick or ich in a marine tank, but ive read a few articles that discuss this being a potential problem.

overall, mollies are a great addition to any reef tank, or to the sump as a sump cleaner.

Thanks for the feedback I read similar info about them. I did my slow drip acclimation for about two hours before putting them in, dropped a few pellets of Hikari pellets that they gobbled up.
My observations so far:
* My curious clown pair seem to find them interesting, at first they nipped (not too aggressively, no chasing or darting at) when the mollies came close but now they are all kinda swimming together peacefully.
* My Lawnmower blenny doesn't really like them but doesn't chase them so... I guess that's okay (I'll just have to keep an eye out for any blatant hostility).
* The flow seems like it might be kinda too strong for them in some places (basically the whole top of my aquarium [small 36 gallon ]). And it makes me kind of nervous when they go near my power heads - but I think I might end up fixing that up with some padding around the intake part (I'll probably have to do it anyways for when I get an anemone in the distant future lol).
* As far as cleaning and such, I have seen them picking at the sand as well as algae on the walls and rocks (including hair algae but they didn't seem too enthusiastic about it since they spit it out - will update if I see them nomming away at it one day).

I just turned off my stronger powerhead just to give them an easy first night - and so I can stop tensing up everytime one of them gets pushed across my aquarium. I still have some decent flow with my other two Hydors though...

 

[Dtackett]

foam pads are a great thing but remember they will pickup destritus and can become nitrate havens if you don't clean them every few days to a week. the mollies will adjust to the flow and learn the areas that are too much for them. I suggest getting rid of the powerheads and going with a wavemaker, or getting a wavemaker controller that will turn your powerheads on and off. you can put a lot more flow through your tank on a pulse than you can with a constant blast. also mollies love to play in the flow of a wave maker. mine would wait until in between pulses, swim right up in front of the wavemaker and ride the wave across the tank. it was funny to watch.

 

[Humblefish]

Supposedly living in full SW shortens their lifespan, as they are more brackish water fish. One huge pro is a freshwater molly (very important) is probably the only fish you don't have to bother with QT. Once converted over, any freshwater diseases they were carrying will have died off after exposure to saltwater. However, if you buy a molly that has already been converted to full SW, then they are just as susceptible as any other saltwater fish to saltwater diseases.

 

[Dtackett]

mollies can become more susceptible to virus' in saltwater. ive never had one get sick or ich in a marine tank, but ive read a few articles that discuss this being a potential problem..

Supposedly living in full SW shortens their lifespan, as they are more brackish water fish. One huge pro is a freshwater molly (very important) is probably the only fish you don't have to bother with QT. Once converted over, any freshwater diseases they were carrying will have died off after exposure to saltwater. However, if you buy a molly that has already been converted to full SW, then they are just as susceptible as any other saltwater fish to saltwater diseases.

would you agree with this statement? I don't remember where I read it. it was something about how its immune system is weaker when it always lives in saltwater vs living always in freshwater or brackish water.

my mollies seemed to be tanks. never had any issues, so I cant say if its true or just someones opinion from an article I read a couple years ago.

 

[Humblefish]

would you agree with this statement? I don't remember where I read it. it was something about how its immune system is weaker when it always lives in saltwater vs living always in freshwater or brackish water.

my mollies seemed to be tanks. never had any issues, so I cant say if its true or just someones opinion from an article I read a couple years ago.

If it is true that living in full SW "stresses" them, then they would naturally be more susceptible to disease as their immune system would be compromised. Of course, this only applies IF a disease was present in the water in the first place. But more to the point, mollies are not a fish I would want to try ich management with.

 

[Dtackett]

thanks for the response. ive got the experience of breeding mollies in saltwater but don't know much about how it affects their immune system lol. like I said, mine were tanks. nothing seemed to bother them. but I didn't have ich or anything in my tanks so I could have just been lucky lol

 

[meganias123]

Thanks for the responses guys. So progress report:
I ended up fishing my Black female molly out of the aquarium last night, as she was acting listless and just floating around my aquarium sticking to any available powerhead... an hr or so later she died in the qtank
I continued a check of the aquarium ever so often looking at the mollies for any sign of distress and an hr or so after the black male molly was reacting the same way, acting like he could only swim with one fin (and barely at that) - so I fished him out... knowing that if he were to get stuck in a rock crevice or get caught by a crab or something then he wouldn't even have a chance.
So my white female and orange/golden male seemed to be doing fine, swimming side-by-side in a current stream in between a baserock and my aquarium wall; however about 2 hours later I got up for a check and the orange male was stuck on the outside of one of my powerheads... (I had seen them swimming around my powerheads earlier with no problem so I think he must have gotten weak or something and ended up floating up with the current?). He was still alive, so I put him in qtank with the other molly who seemed to be doing better.
I added a small amount of freshwater to the qtank thinking maybe that might help before? ... it seemed to be okay.
This morning, woke up and both male mollies are still alive. The orange male doesn't look so good... he's kind of sitting in a corner. The black male is swimming at an angle (face tipped downwards)... could this be some sort of swim bladder illness or something?
The white female is doing great, nibbling away at the walls, rocks, and sand. My Lawnmower blenny doesn't seem to really pay much attention to her either... so that's better.

 

[meganias123]

Is this swim bladder or is he just weak? :/ The flow isn't strong...
The orange male molly is sitting on the bottom of the tank still, occasionally moving his fins (he's breathing and moving his mouth at a "normal rate" though).

 

[thebluecatapilla]

Very interesting just how adaptable these common little fish are

 

[Dtackett]

not sure what the problem is for your fish. it could have been a shock if you didn't have your salinity right but ive seen a few people dump them straight in from fresh so I cant say if that's it. I never had any of these problems before. they could have just had issues when you got them and the change to salt was the kicker that stressed them too much.

 

[meganias123]

not sure what the problem is for your fish. it could have been a shock if you didn't have your salinity right but ive seen a few people dump them straight in from fresh so I cant say if that's it. I never had any of these problems before. they could have just had issues when you got them and the change to salt was the kicker that stressed them too much.

Thanks for the feedback. The only problem water levels wise would probably be organic phosphates maybe? But I wouldn't think that would bother them since my other fish haven't shown any sign of distress. Ehh, but I don't know all that much about organic phosphates (just read about it not long ago). The white, female molly is still alive and she seems to be doing great... I even turned the stronger powerhead back on (repositioning it so that there wasn't a direct stream shooting across my aquarium [but still getting awesome flow throughout the tank]).
I even saw her fishsleeping? in a lower flow area under a shelf piece when I turned the lights out last night.

 

[Duke4Life]

I've had varying results with mollies. IMO the blacks seem to do better than the other colored mollies for some reason. If you can get them to breed their fry make tasty treats for the rest of your fish.

 

[Dtackett]

Thanks for the feedback. The only problem water levels wise would probably be organic phosphates maybe? But I wouldn't think that would bother them since my other fish haven't shown any sign of distress. Ehh, but I don't know all that much about organic phosphates (just read about it not long ago). The white, female molly is still alive and she seems to be doing great... I even turned the stronger powerhead back on (repositioning it so that there wasn't a direct stream shooting across my aquarium [but still getting awesome flow throughout the tank]).
I even saw her fishsleeping? in a lower flow area under a shelf piece when I turned the lights out last night.

yeah youll see most fish do that. its a form of sleep. they can see whats going on around them, they can react but only the most basic functions are working. its a state of deep rest. at least that's my understanding.

hopefully you are successful with this. as I said, I never lost a fish from the 4 hour drip. I even got bored and did guppies (didn't last more than a few days... tasty treats apparently).

 

[meganias123]

So I went away on a trip (had some family watch over my tank) for around 12 days and came back to some interesting things!

1. snail eggs (not sure what type but it was cool because I had never seen any in my aquarium before)!

2. MY MOLLY HAD BABIES!!
.... not even sure how it was possibly because she was a little skinny fish when I first put her in the tank and my other mollies didn't last more than 2 days... guess a lot can happen in two days [emoji13]
Some of the babies managed to find their way into the overflow box, down the pipe, and into the sump. So now I have 3 more mollies (that i have noticed) swimming around in my sump!

3. Found a big, black stomatella snail - I didn't know I had - cleaning up underneath an octospawn coral ;p
It's always so exciting to find new things popping up in your aquarium (at least the good things).

4. Algae outbreak...
Some hair algae that is getting out of control and something growing on my sump glass looking like brownish snot ~ most likely dinoflagellates (I've had and dealt with them before) Dx
Not as exciting but I will have to do a manual removal/suction, and some cleaning for sure.
Anyways, just updating [emoji14]

Mother, and only surviving molly, in top picture.
Three surviving babies in bottom collage picture.

 

[Dtackett]

nice. and yes, mollies will breed readily in a reef. the babies are great snacks for the other fish and coral.