Saltwater Mollies??

[365seasons]

Alright, so after reading the Feeding Live thread on here, we got to thinking. If it is possible to have mollies not only live for a short time, but live and breed in a saltwater tank, it would be great to watch our fish and especially our seahorses hunt for live fry. Since mollies are readily available and live bearers which breed often, we were thinking that it may be a good idea.

Of course we are not looking to throw in a molly directly into the tank, and hope for it to survive, but knowing that they are brackish fish, is it possible to have them live? I saw someone on here that said they had mollies in their tank for a year or so, I believe. We did a little bit of research and the acclimating time ranged anywhere from 4-6 hours to multiple weeks in a QT tank.

Anyone tried this, or are we out to sea with this idea entirely? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[conix67]

Alright, so after reading the Feeding Live thread on here, we got to thinking. If it is possible to have mollies not only live for a short time, but live and breed in a saltwater tank, it would be great to watch our fish and especially our seahorses hunt for live fry. Since mollies are readily available and live bearers which breed often, we were thinking that it may be a good idea.

Of course we are not looking to throw in a molly directly into the tank, and hope for it to survive, but knowing that they are brackish fish, is it possible to have them live? I saw someone on here that said they had mollies in their tank for a year or so, I believe. We did a little bit of research and the acclimating time ranged anywhere from 4-6 hours to multiple weeks in a QT tank.

Anyone tried this, or are we out to sea with this idea entirely? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

What I have read indicated 4-6 hours or even less is possible, and shorter the better, less stressful to fish.

I never actually tried this because I had no real good reason to add my mollies to SW tank...

[justinl]

What I have read indicated 4-6 hours or even less is possible, and shorter the better, less stressful to fish.


huh? I've read that it's backwards from that. 4-6 is possible but not desirable. The longer the better because the slowly changing salinity is less stressful on their osmotic control; that at least makes sense.

365, before you attempt this, you have to find an answer to the main question: will they breed in saltwater? Just because a species breeds often in fresh/brackish, that doesn't mean it will in SW. Unfortunately I don't know the answer.

[Key Equine]

Interesting idea, but I used to breed Mollies in freshwater and the fry are generally quite quick. I would be surprised if seahorses could catch them. :)

[365seasons]

Yeah, we were just wondering if anyone had had any luck with them.
If we did acclimate them, it would be over a very long period of time.

Claire, we bred them in freshwater too, and we never really thought about how fast they were, but they do go through that stage for the first day or two where they can hardly swim, and just hover a little bit above the ground. Maybe the ponies could get at them then....
If not, our tang, I'm sure would gobble them up. (I sound sadistic for a vegetarian hey :wink:)

Thanks for the responses.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Years ago, I slowly acclimated a bunch of balloon mollies to full strength saltwater. I did it over several months, but they did fine. Bred like crazy & did really well in sw.

Anthony

[Snappy]

I have done it on a few occasions and they acclimate fine. In fact the last time I just put them straight into the SW without a drip and they were fine. Even better if you get already pregnant females and then the babies are born into the SW and they do very well. My only problem is they would go into the overflow in the frag tank, end up in the sump and get sucked into the displays and get eaten. Other than that they do great. I recommend using mollies to cycle a tank as they are easy to catch when you want to move them out unlike damsels that you wish you never bought and then can't catch and they then outlive the rest of the fish.

[jsmth321]

Back years ago 10-12, I had black mollies in salt water and they did breed, just like they did in freshwater.

I acclimated them over a period of a few days in a 10 gallon, each day doing a small water change and then replacing it with saltwater.