Mollies in the reef tank

[GQ22]

Came across this thread on RC, thought I'd share it with my MR fam.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=965490&perpage=25&pagenumber=2

This is pretty interesting. Has anyone ever tried it? There is an amazing before and after vidoe of a molly eating cyano/red slime algae. Tank was compleely cleaned.

If this does work and they break, The fry, would be food for me flame hawk.

Anyone have tried know of any drawbacks?

 

[GQ22]

Here is a review by someone

I started reading this thread about a month ago and immediatly went out and got a couple of dalmation mollies and acclimated them for 6 hours and threw them in. they have since been bounced from a 12gal nano to my frag tank to an aquapod 24 . I have set up MANY reef tanks in the last 16 years and this concept was new to me and almost looked WRONG for a reef tank. Freshwater fish in a reef tank ? NO WAY ! Well, after watching them DESTROY HA in the 12 gal nano and then in the frag tank and then the 24 aquapod, i would never consider NOT using them in a reef tank. I have never seen a marine fish clean as well and so damn fast. I will, from now on, have at least 1 of them in every tank that i set up. They not only clean the glass, sand, and everything else in the tank, they flat out tear up some HA. Best part is that they have NEVER bothered and of my SPS/LPS/Softies/Polyps. They also get along with all the other tankmates that you typically see in a reef tank enviroment.
JMO

 

[nanchil]

:scratchch interesting, any one from MR have tried this?

 

[lfsmarineguy]

Mollies are a brackish fish they are normally kept in fresh just because they are cheap and can sell better to fresh customers. They can be acclimated to full on saltwater or plain fresh they are VERY hardy. I have heard from many people that they do eat hair algae, never heard anything about cyano (but then if u have cyano it's just a symptom of a bigger problem and eating it doesn't get rid of the problem). I personally don't like the way they look among the saltwater fish and if you have to use them to eliminate hair algae or cyano (like I said already) you have bigger problems and mollies aren't gonna fix it. Also, 6 hrs is extreme for an acclimation with these fish they are VERY hardy and are a brackish fish anyway. Some saltwater suppliers have actually been carrying "Saltwater Mollies" for some time now if you know where to look. Besides if god wanted you to have mollies in your reef he would have made them a saltwater fish and not brackish... If you maintain your tank you don't need them.

 

[DEEPWATER]

Mollies are a brackish fish they are normally kept in fresh just because they are cheap and can sell better to fresh customers. They can be acclimated to full on saltwater or plain fresh they are VERY hardy. I have heard from many people that they do eat hair algae, never heard anything about cyano (but then if u have cyano it's just a symptom of a bigger problem and eating it doesn't get rid of the problem). I personally don't like the way they look among the saltwater fish and if you have to use them to eliminate hair algae or cyano (like I said already) you have bigger problems and mollies aren't gonna fix it. Also, 6 hrs is extreme for an acclimation with these fish they are VERY hardy and are a brackish fish anyway. Some saltwater suppliers have actually been carrying "Saltwater Mollies" for some time now if you know where to look. Besides if god wanted you to have mollies in your reef he would have made them a saltwater fish and not brackish... If you maintain your tank you don't need them.

Not true ,,,g-d made some fish and animals have the power to go into both worlds ,like turtles ,some snakes and i forgot what shark ,but it can go from slat water to fresh water om its own ,,.kinda weird but true .

ive seen some ppl acclimate brackish water fish to salt water ,,so what im trying to say is ,that if g-d didnt want these fish to be able to get acclimated into salt water ,they would just die ,thus they can ,so im think g-d has no prob :usa1:

Its almost saying ,tht we shouldnt have gone to the moon ,but we did lol

 

[Deanos]

I cycled my first saltwater tank with 2 mollies from Petland. They ate all the macroalgae that grew on the rocks. I remember being upset that they did, since I bought the rocks because it had "natural saltwater plants" as per the LFS

 

[e.muehlbauer]

Years ago, when I last went to Florida, I remember sailfin mollies living in the salt marshes and drainage ditches behing the beaches, in what must have been pretty close to full salt water...they aere as abundant as killifish are in our salt marshes. I just have my doubts about the health of the mollies that are ordinarily available in most of our LFS...Take care, Eric

 

[Tonyscoots84]

really good find GQ..

 

[KathyC]

I've been involved with FW fish-keeping for some time now and would just like to remind anyone who wants to try this with the Mollies to PLEASE QT them before adding them to your reef tank!
As someone else pointed out above - don't trust their health by how they 'look'.
You'll have plently of time to acclimate them in the QT tank...


LFSMarinegy- great points!

 

[techreef]

i've got one in my 90G tank, which has some HA growing. can't say that I'm noticing much of a difference. it's a male molly, which seem to eat less than the females do. I too had read that RC thread, and figured instead of just waiting for it to die of old age in our FW tank that we're waiting to use as a future SW QT tank, I'd see what he could do in the salt tank. it's been 3 weeks; they have no problem dealing w/ SW, and I suspect that if i keep this tank up for 20 years, he'll still outlive every other dumb carpet-surfing, overflow hopping SW fish I get. (can you tell my 2nd midas blenny went missing last week??)

 

[jmh]

I have a friend that cycled his tank with mollies they all eventually died but two babies made it to the sump where they still live I believe, so its been done before and if it has benefits go for it.

BTW a bull shark can live in fresh and saltwater, and its the most deadliest shark. responsible for the most human deaths. A bull shark was responsible for killing 4 people in matawan NJ, in the 1900's and thats where they got the idea for the movie jaws.

 

[GQ22]

fyi, dont try if you have aggressive fish (damsels) and if you have hi flow. I tried it out, acclimated them in 2 hours, and the white one and dalmation one are still alive, but as the thread says best to try with the white and dalmation ones. They are just hovering in a calm low flow surface area of my tank. The other two i got are food for the star fishes and crabs.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

BTW a bull shark can live in fresh and saltwater, and its the most deadliest shark. responsible for the most human deaths. A bull shark was responsible for killing 4 people in matawan NJ, in the 1900's and thats where they got the idea for the movie jaws.

Some bull shark can live as inland as 30 miles and hunt monkeys on low hanging branches when they cross the river.

There are more than one type of sharks that can live both in fresh and salt water.

Molly fish are first found in central to south America mainly in rivers but and in some coastal area of the sea later on. Thus in the old days, people think that they need salt to thrive but it turns out that salinity has very little effects on them. Instead people found mollies thrive better(breed more) in CLEAR(either salt or fresh) water. To have CLEAR fresh water is very easy, therefore most breeders breed them in fresh water.

 

[crox99]

I started my old 10g with a molly.

 

[scarf_ace1981]

if you want to cycle w/ a molly go right ahead but i think it's stupid to set up a saltwater tank and put fish in it that you could easily keep in a puddle of piss.

 

[ShaunW]

if you want to cycle w/ a molly go right ahead but i think it's stupid to set up a saltwater tank and put fish in it that you could easily keep in a puddle of piss.

:lol:

But if they eat algae like some suggest they could be a valuable addition. I've been thinking about adding some. It would be cool to have the fry swimming around, but I wouldn't want it to get out-of-hand, :scratch: .

 

[scarf_ace1981]

i do agree if they can eat the algae great. but setting up a tank and then having them as part of your display is just obsurd.

:idea: we may have stumbled onto something. your tank cycled and you have algae bloom, get some mollies