Saltwater acclimated Mollies!

[Scottmac]

Hi, has anyone have any experience acclimatising normally freshwater species such as Mollies to their reef tanks? I have kept freshwater tanks for decades, but this year I set up my first saltwater tank mainly for the inverts and corals. So adding cheap freshwater fish to a saltwater aquarium is the perfect solution for me on a budget.

Lots of reasons to do this:

1.They are very cheap compared to saltwater fish (which tend to be overpriced IMO to say the least).

2. Even in freshwater tanks they are fairly hardy, but as most bacteria & fungi that affect them can't exist in saltwater, they're even healthier in saltwater.

3. They are herbivorous algae-pickers/scrapers so make v good clean up crew to clean macroalgae.

4. They come in lots of colours variations/shapes inc sailfin. The most common ones sold in my local pet store are the flame red/orange for £3-5 ($4-7), which you could have to pay a small fortune to get in a marine fish. Pic 1 shows common colours, pic 2 shows sailfin male and female

5.They are mega easy to breed (they are live bearers, usually 6-14 fry at a time in my experience). With a breeding box you can isolate the most colourful males and females to selectively breed shapes/colours. Easy to do, i've done it lots with Guppies and Platys. If you haven't seen livebearer males in breeding action before... well you're in for a surprise

So I am going to have a go at drip acclimating over about half a day, expecting to lose a few.

Anyone had success with Mollies or any other species?

There is a vid here:

Or from a US perspective:

Scott

 

[Tamberav]

I have mollies in my basement tub....it's a QT tank. I bought 12 babies and 5 made it. I dripped then over 2-3 days. I am pretty sure the ones I lost were the already sickly/weak/runty looking ones and were probably going to die anyway. I didn't get to pick the fish...they were just 50 cents each in a big tank at the LFS.

I hear sometimes they don't do well with reef flow but flow varies a lot from tank to tank and the corals people choose. They probably also are not so smart about anenomes and get picked on by reef fish. Otherwise probably a fine addition. They tend to have better colors when they live in salt.

 

[Scottmac]

Yeah I am not surprised that some died, esp if you added them as fry, because Mollies these days are all farm bred so not as strong and healthy as in the wild. But it's not like you lost a fortune!

I am planning on adding 3 adults (2 females 1 male), so when I do the acclimatisation, I think I may be extra cautious and do it over a full day with a bubble filter to keep them happy for the duration until the salinity is the same as my main tank.

That's interesting about the colours, it makes sense that colouration would be more vibrant if Mollies are healthier in saltwater. It may also be because freshwater tanks don't tend to have such expensive blue lighting as marine set ups. I have seen Sailfin Speckled Mollies that under white light appear pearl white with black specks, but under blue light have beautiful iridescent neon-blue scales, fins (and sometimes lips.)

Have you ever heard of other species this can be done with? In vid comments I have seen mentioned that Bumblebee Gobies, Pea Puffers and Plays can adapt to saltwater, but so far I have only seen that Mollies are confirmed to be happy in 1.024 salinity. Ideally i'd love to add Cory catfish / Plec, but I doubt that's possible.

Scott

 

[fishybizzness]

Why not just have a really nice freshwater tank with a good light? It's alot easier and cheaper too...

 

[Scottmac]

I have already spent a fortune setting up a marine tank, plus I am interested to see if I can successfully mix Mollies and other freshwater fish with Marine species. My marine tank is going through its ugly phase with algae, so adding Mollies would be a cheap solution. For the price of one algae blenny I could buy a dozen adult mollies.

 

[fishybizzness]

I have already spent a fortune setting up a marine tank, plus I am interested to see if I can successfully mix Mollies and other freshwater fish with Marine species. My marine tank is going through its ugly phase with algae, so adding Mollies would be a cheap solution. For the price of one algae blenny I could buy a dozen adult mollies.

I just set up a new 120 a few months ago and turned on the lights a few weeks ago. I apparently had the light intensity too high and had a algae bloom all over the rocks and glass. My solution was to clean the glass well, turn off the lights for a week and add a few snails and a longspine urchin. Within 5 days the rocks were looking great and I turned back on the lights at a lower intensity. Worked for me.

 

[SMSREEF]

I have already spent a fortune setting up a marine tank, plus I am interested to see if I can successfully mix Mollies and other freshwater fish with Marine species. My marine tank is going through its ugly phase with algae, so adding Mollies would be a cheap solution. For the price of one algae blenny I could buy a dozen adult mollies.

This is really cool idea! Some of the mollies are gorgeous and would look really cool in a reef with corals.
I’m gonna follow along to see how this goes because I may put them in my refugium to keep my macroalgae clean and put more nutrients into the tank.

 

[mattzang]

i just got a few that i want to use to detect diseases before introduction to my dt

i actually bought a half orange lyretail one and it's actually kinda pretty lol. i just dumped them into 1.016 water and topped off with saltwater yesterday. gonna get them to full reef salinity and see what i shall do from there. they popped out babies on night one so i guess i have some backups if some don't make the full acclimation

 

[Scottmac]

I am getting some this afternoon, probably 2 dalmations, 2 blacks and 2 golds. Those 6 fish in total will cost me about half the cost of a blenny.

Note for anyone trying adding Mollies, always make sure you have at least 2 females for every one male! Male livebearers are like hormone-junky teenagers on PCP, one female alone with a male would die of exhaustion...and they'll have a go at anything else in your tank.

I am adding mine to my main tank as I don't have a refugium yet (it's a converted tropical tank so not designed with an overflow so needs some work and equipment added). But ideally a refugium would be the best place to put them with some small sexy shrimp amongst some mangroves and macroalgae.

I will keep you guys posted on how it goes.

Scott

 

[LegendaryCG]

I had 2 in my tank. 1 died after 6 months but It had damage to its tail from fighting with an Angelfish. The other one is doing fine still, does a good job assisting with algae removal.

 

[Scottmac]

I had 2 in my tank. 1 died after 6 months but It had damage to its tail from fighting with an Angelfish. The other one is doing fine still, does a good job assisting with algae removal.

Thanks for the info, I will be careful which marine fish I add to my tank withvthe mollies.

Just had a friend tell me about Green Spotted Puffer which also adapt well to saltwater. This will cost me £7 (about $9) at my LPS

 

[Casket_Case]

Thanks for the info, I will be careful which marine fish I add to my tank withvthe mollies.

Just had a friend tell me about Green Spotted Puffer which also adapt well to saltwater. This will cost me £7 (about $9) at my LPS

Yeah, I had one they’re spectacular but then I got a cleaner shrimp and he tried to eat it. Acclimate overnight, they need full salt when nature so it shouldnt hurt them that bad.

 

[Casket_Case]

I did this a while ago and it was strange, I got fish from two different places and both were the same species of guppy and the guppies from one store lasted a great while and the ones from another store didn’t last well at all... the ones that didn’t last were from an overstocked store. I’m guessing some kind of chemical that was dosed messed with them when put in a marine environment? I don’t know. But the mollies did great and lasted a while till my Brittle Star ate all five so I now only have one. Brittle stars like brackish fish like mollies and guppies... I’m guessing they’re slower moving and are busy swimming against the current so they’re weaker prey. The guppies that passed the brittle star got sucked into the powerhead so you need a powerhead protector.

 

[Scottmac]

Update: Its now 8.30pm in the UK, I purchased 8 Mollies (2 males & 6 females) today for £2.50 each (approx. $3) and put the bags in the tank at 4.30pm.

I drip acclimated them until 8pm, then cut slits in the bags as I always prefer to let them swim out themselves so its less stressful rather than net transfer them in.

In the last 30 mins one of my golds and one of my Labradors have swam out of the bag slits and are exploring their new tank, the other 6 are still in their bags. All eating well not showing any signs of distress. Fingers crossed this works, if it does my next addition will be a green spot puffer!

The two who are out (both females) are not getting bothered by the marine fish except the 3 Clowns coming over to say hello. It's very odd sight seeing Mollies with Clowns and my Tang!

Hopefully the majority will survive the night, then I think they will be fine. Lets see if they do the job the lazy snails and emerald crabs are supposed to do and get rid of the algae!

Scott

 

[Scottmac]

Lost 2 golds overnight, all the blacks and Dalmations are fine... it may be that the golds are a fancy-bred variety so not as hardy. Hopefully the rest will be fine from now on.

They're shoaling together and going around the sides pecking at the algae.

 

[special-ops-s2k]

Lost 2 golds overnight, all the blacks and Dalmations are fine... it may be that the golds are a fancy-bred variety so not as hardy. Hopefully the rest will be fine from now on.

They're shoaling together and going around the sides pecking at the algae.

I bought a dozen back when I started my tank... I think I lost 3 post acclimation process. The other 9 lived happily in my 150g tub to help build bio filter in my live rock... Then I added them to the display. The fact they don't do well with high flow power heads is correct. The first one I dropped into the display made one lap in my 200g peninsula before he was sucked through one of my MP40s running at 50%... I immediately turned all of them down to 20% and added the other 8. They were fine with that level of flow and over the next several weeks I slowly upped it some. They bred constantly and the babies thrive in saltwater... I now have way more than I started with. I keep them in all my QT tanks and my sump. The babies make excellent live food for my reef fish from time to time.

Have fun!

 

[Aussiemarine]

Added two to my quarantine tank - 2 hour acclimation and they are doing great always picking at debris on the bottom of the tank waiting for food. They eat everything as well

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

I bought a dozen back when I started my tank... I think I lost 3 post acclimation process. The other 9 lived happily in my 150g tub to help build bio filter in my live rock... Then I added them to the display. The fact they don't do well with high flow power heads is correct. The first one I dropped into the display made one lap in my 200g peninsula before he was sucked through one of my MP40s running at 50%... I immediately turned all of them down to 20% and added the other 8. They were fine with that level of flow and over the next several weeks I slowly upped it some. They bred constantly and the babies thrive in saltwater... I now have way more than I started with. I keep them in all my QT tanks and my sump. The babies make excellent live food for my reef fish from time to time.

Have fun!

This is the issue I'm worried about. These guys aren't great with flow. Yours were able to acclimate to it?

 

[Nburg's Reef]

I remember reading somewhere that they did better for people that just temp acclimated them and dumped them or did a 30 min acclimation .

 

[DeniseAndy]

I just got 9 from the store yesterday. 2 male and 4 female dalmatian, 1 black, 2 orange balloon belly (not sure will convert these two - may go to daughter).
I am doing a slow acclimation. So, they are in a 5g AIO tank. Just some plastic plants and castle. I will be exchanging tank water for salt water over the course of whatever it takes to get to my main salinity in qt.
These guys will go into my lower flow coral qt tanks to help with algae issues. Hoping it works.