Molly's in reef?

[biomekanic]

Still planning out my tank, but I'm considering mollies and a school of guppies. It'll be a low flow paly/xenia tank so they won't get roughed up

 

[DEWreefing]

Oops-90K liters/hr not gallons. So more like 24K gal/hr. I have 12 Coralbox QP15 pumps but only 6 run at a time except for a short interval every 6 hr when all 12 kick in. But the mollies did struggle always staying in a low flow area.

So you should be fine I run over 40k gallon per hour in my 6ft 180g tank mollies did just fine

 

[salty joe]

Hmmm, maybe I'll try again. I think a group of black mollies would be cool in a reef tank.

 

[Indytraveler83]

Just my experience:

I have 2 black mollies that went from a FW planted tank to my reef tank as juveniles because they were bullied in the FW tank by adult mollies.

At first they really struggled with flow and definitely had no idea what was safe to eat vs not. One of them got quite the sting when it tried to feed on my large maxi-mini nem.

Now about 6 months later they are massive mollies (about 3 in and very bulky), handle the flow well and seem to understand what they can and cannot eat.

They’ve never picked at any coral, soft or otherwise, don’t touch anything calcified and only pick at non-calcified macro (not enough to affect it’s crazy growth rate).

In my experience they’ve been a better algae eating team than any blenny I’ve tried. The only negative I can see is that they are the “cows” of the tank, and you should prepare to handle the waste they create.

(Another plus, in blue lights they are the very first animal in the tank to show signs of ich on their black bodies. Makes it easier to catch early).

 

[DEWreefing]

Now I feel like going out and getting move.

 

[User]

Now, for everyone saying they are good algae eaters: are we talking GHA, turf... or display quality macro like dragons breath, shaving brush etc?

Because I’m planning to acclimate them to SW to use as canaries during QT of very delicate fish, and figured any that survive can live in my display macro refugium. Bad idea?

 

[Indytraveler83]

Now, for everyone saying they are good algae eaters: are we talking GHA, turf... or display quality macro like dragons breath, shaving brush etc?

Because I’m planning to acclimate them to SW to use as canaries during QT of very delicate fish, and figured any that survive can live in my display macro refugium. Bad idea?

In my experience they don’t like anything too tough. They’ve left my shaving brush alone, and nibble just a little on the Caulerpa, though not enough to effect its growth. I haven’t seen them touch turf algae, but GHA is one of my mollies favorite foods, and they probably lived solely off that for months.

 

[User]

In my experience they don’t like anything too tough. They’ve left my shaving brush alone, and nibble just a little on the Caulerpa, though not enough to effect its growth. I haven’t seen them touch turf algae, but GHA is one of my mollies favorite foods, and they probably lived solely off that for months.

Great, thanks.

I don’t have any GHA but my display has about a combined 4sqft of turf algae that is so short and dense I can’t get my fingers in it to pull out. If something ate it, I’d buy 15 of them right now, lol.

 

[Indytraveler83]

Great, thanks.

I don’t have any GHA but my display has about a combined 4sqft of turf algae that is so short and dense I can’t get my fingers in it to pull out. If something ate it, I’d buy 15 of them right now, lol.

Mollies can differ a lot I’m sure. Most of the reason mine don’t touch it is because it grows in cracks and crevices they know crabs like to live in.

 

[AcanSkywalker]

so you guys just float and drop them if you buy them at a lfs that has them in freshwater? might have to grab a couple for my qt observation tank

GARF.org sells molly's fully acclimated

 

[special-ops-s2k]

They work great! I have 14 or so in my 200gal build feeding my bio filter bacteria and keeping the nusiance algae under control... They are a great bio-load place holder. When my first batch of fish are through quarantine they will trade places with the mollies.

Then the mollies will keep my quarantine tanks running until it's time to run another batch. Bonus is they have bred once already in the display tank and so I have a bunch of 1/4 baby mollies in there as well!

 

[H2Ocooled]

I have 1 Molly male in my reef now, he handles the flow just fine and is always out eating, loves the nori I put out for the tangs. I tried acclimating 3 female Mollies with a drip setup over 4 hours and they all died within 24 hours of adding them to my setup. So for now its just the solo male in there.