Saltwater acclimated Mollies!

Pntbll687 · Jul 27, 2020

I have 10 lyretail mollies in my low boy frag tank. I started with 12, and ten made it after the first week.

They do a great job cleaning EVERYTHING. I'm trying to grow coral out to sell, so mollies were budget friendly, and low replacement cost.

radiata · Jul 27, 2020

I cheated with mine. I bought some that were bred in saltwater at ORA. Got them at a LFS.

Old Reefer · Jul 27, 2020

Back in the 70's we used very cheap mollies to cycle our tanks. They are very hardy and most can survive if introduced to the salt water slowly. They lived for quite a long time, and as others have said, eat everything they can find.

Scottmac · Jul 28, 2020

Thanks for the replies and feedback. It seems like it has been a success, 6 out of 8 survived. Very active in the tank, and I have changed my outflow directions so that there are areas where there is little flow to give them a break. They not being bothered by the marine fish or inverts... although I never found the 2 bodies, not even a bone or piece of skin. I suspect my spiny seastar.

I will give them a few weeks then try breeding them. The only breeding issue is that because of their patterning you can't see the gravid spot like you can in guppies and platys which makes pregnancy ID easy, and the females are already plump, so they may already be pregnant and I wouldn't know. My LFS does not have any salt-reared Mollies, so once I have bred a good number I will give them some for loyalty credits.

In a month or two I will try acclimating a Green Puffer. Shame there aren't any small catfish/loaches that can adapt to full saltwater. I know there are large coastal species like Hardheads and Gafftopsail, but those aren't tank suitable. Plecs are fine living in African Cichlid tanks with a very slight salinity, but that's it as far as I know.

Scott

markfmvl · Jul 29, 2020

In my opinion, the second generation does better in salt. not sure why. I think I only have one left of my original fish. I acclimated them very slowly in a Qt tank. starting with apx. 50% salt water. I raised it up by topping the evaporation off with salt water, so it took a while. the reason i used that method was because I lost all of the first batch. I wonder if the generations of farm raised fish loose some of the genetics to tolerate salt. I think the average life span of a molly is 3 years.