Freshwater tang, clownfish???

[yesjenks]

If this is the wrong thread I apologize in advance.

Maybe in another lifetime I will be a marine biologist. But, in this life time I'm going to friendly and knowledgeable members of MR.

Is it possible to change a typical saltwater fish to freshwater? This may be a ridiculous question, but I was thinking if you lowered the salinity every month .01 (or something to the effect) till it was eventually 0 would this work? If so, would it effect the overall health of the fish. If not, why?

Thank you in advance for your response.

 

[jaa1456]

It has been done before but most fish die within a month and the longest ever recorded was 6 months of survival. That was a damsel. On the other hand freshwater mollies have been acclimated to salt and have lived for over a year.

 

[marrone]

I'm not sure where you got the 6 month thing, but back in the mid 80's I was down in Bush Garden in Tampa and they have a bunch of fish in a large aquarium, the cement type, that had been brought down from saltwater to freshwater water over a series of days. I forget the type of fish but I think it was along the line of a type of Snapper.

 

[jaa1456]

The 6 month thing came from aquarium usa a magazine and one of their articles. That is the longest known switch to live that is published that I know of

 

[Og Drogon]

I have heard and seen mollies go from freshwater to saltwater ........but don't know if they lasted long.


I'm Nemo's mother!

 

[LatinP]

What we have to remember is fish can't talk. What if we took a human stuck him/her in a box and slowly reduced the amount of oxygen inside it?

Now it wouldn't kill us right away but we definitely wouldn't thrive inside. I'm no expert and I haven't read any studies but it would make perfect common sense that a saltwater fish out of saltwater wouldn't be a very healthy fish or live a normal life expectancy, I don't know maybe I'm crazy that's just how I look at it.

 

[smoq]

The thing with mollies is that they can be found in brackish water in their natural habitat so I think evolution played a role in their ability to survive in saltwater for some time.

 

[marrone]

There are a lot of fish, including shark, salmon and Eels who live in both, though for some it's just to breed.

 

[yesjenks]

Wow, thanks for all your input!

LatinP I definitely agree with that thought.

smoq, the thought for this thread came to me when thinking about freshwater stingrays. According to an article I read millions of years ago when oceans split a small population of stingrays was left in the present day amazon river basin and survived for generations as the waters saline dropped through the years.

I'm thinking that you take an already breeding pair of saltwater fish and over the course of a few months lower the saline .5. When there fry is born and healthy slowly acclimate them to another.5 lower. When there fry is born . . . .

I would think in 10 or so years you could have freshwater saltwater fish. No?

 

[yesjenks]

There are a lot of fish, including shark, salmon and Eels who live in both, though for some it's just to breed.

Thats really interesting. Going to research that.

 

[xxxAngeloxxx]

I had 3 mollies in my 55G before and they all did well except for 2 of them. Till this day i still have 1 of the mollie that is doing well as we speak. Its been in the tank for 5 months already.

 

[LatinP]

I want to retract my last statement to a point. Since the thread somewhat shifted a bit from the op's original question. Many types of fish can and do live in and out of salt, some even spent long periods of time out of saltwater environments in nature.

But my response was related to this thread's title, "freshwater tang or clownfish". While many fish can handle that change of environment to try and acclimate a Hippo, Naso, Yellow or pretty much any other type of tang or even a clown to a pure freshwater fish environment is pretty much a deathwish even if it doesn't happen overnight. Even if you acclomate it very, very slowly these are fish that spend 100% of the time in a full saltwater environment. That was all I was trying to say in my previous post.

 

[Og Drogon]

Is it possible to change a typical saltwater fish to freshwater?

So there's no "MISUNDERSTANDING" this is the part I was responding to ;-)
:Whaaaaaaaaaaa:
I'm Nemo's mother!

 

[smoq]

Wow, thanks for all your input!

LatinP I definitely agree with that thought.

smoq, the thought for this thread came to me when thinking about freshwater stingrays. According to an article I read millions of years ago when oceans split a small population of stingrays was left in the present day amazon river basin and survived for generations as the waters saline dropped through the years.

I'm thinking that you take an already breeding pair of saltwater fish and over the course of a few months lower the saline .5. When there fry is born and healthy slowly acclimate them to another.5 lower. When there fry is born . . . .

I would think in 10 or so years you could have freshwater saltwater fish. No?

You see, here's the problem we humans cannot overcome- it took those stingrays millions of years to evolve to live in freshwater, because that ocean didn't split overnight. And adapting saltwater fish to freshwater won't work either, even over the course of many years, because by putting a saltwater fish into freshwater you are changing the whole biology of that fish. SW fish are literally drinking water and excreting salts out of their bodies all the time. When you change it's environment to freshwater, it keeps on excreting salts to the point where it looses all of it and dies. There are exceptions to this rule and some fish adapt to changing salinity by switching their internal biology drastically, like for example, salmon. However, it took thousands of salmon populations to evolve to be able to travel from FW to SW and many salmon species went extinct trying to adapt.

 

[yesjenks]

At what point do you guys think it becomes a death wish? Meaning can a saltwater fish be placed in feshewater for a few days then switched back?

Angelo seems to be doing well with his Molly.

Smoq I understand the idea that it takes a freaking long time fir this to happen. I'm kind of surprised with all the tech and available instruments to reaserch how to make this possible some of the big names out there haven't tried starting the process. For all I know maybe they did.

 

[Koyfam16]

Sounds like you want to start your own evolution process..lol
With the reefs around the world in jeopardy due to climate changes etc, it would be great if fish could readily adapt to saltwater or fresh water. Gives them a greater opportunity to survive

How hurtful is the process? That, I don't know..

 

[yesjenks]

Edge I'd love to for those exact reasons. But, I don't have the knowledge, time or money to try something like that.

 

[xxxAngeloxxx]

I have done that before took my molly from my s.w to my f.s to do some tests to see if it can survive in both over a period of time with out me even acclamating the molly in the first place. Till this day once again he is doing fine he eat both foods the freshwater one and saltwater food one too with no problem. But i just have done with a molly ONLY no other fish.

 

[Boomer]

First, we are really talking here about coral reef fish, not Estuarine fish or Anadromous fish. Coral reef fish (most marine ocean fish) have special cells in the gill lamella, that serve a function, which is salt rejection and water through-put. Think of them like RO cells. They there is the role of Osmotic pressure gradients, which would be a 180 degree shift from salt water to fresh water for these fish. You are NOT going to fix this in a few day or months, or years SORRY. Their evolution has not evolved to this like it has for some fish and for most of these fish that can it is cyclic "thing", where there is a physiological cyclic clock shift and coral reef fish DO NOT have this.

 

[tentacles]

I have done that before took my molly from my s.w to my f.s to do some tests to see if it can survive in both over a period of time with out me even acclamating the molly in the first place. Till this day once again he is doing fine he eat both foods the freshwater one and saltwater food one too with no problem. But i just have done with a molly ONLY no other fish.

That is a really irresponsible thing to do (and post).