Are Mollys Reef-Safe

gusmanda

New member
I'm curious as to whether anyone has had these in a reeftank. Have heard folks keeping them to provide live food when they spawn, wonder whether they damage corals.
 
Yes there are multiple threads on this. They do not eat coral. They will spawn in saltwater


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I think the intended purpose is algae control with the frequent spawning a secondary benefit. And yes, they are reef safe. They do need to be slowly acclimated to full strength seawater though.
 
Here's a picture of my Platinum Molly
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He's been in my tank for months at 1.026. Just aclimate them slowly and don't put them in with agressive fish like tangs lol
 
It's probably going to be the first fish in the tank, didn't know they where used in algae control though. That's good news
 
Yes! Reef-safe, love to eat algae, and make lots of little molly babies aka free food. I love mine. Just go slow with acclimating your initial ones to the saltwater. If you want fry, be sure to sex them in the store and try for a harem (3:1 female-to-male ratio) - it's super easy to tell females from males visually.
 
Yes! Reef-safe, love to eat algae, and make lots of little molly babies aka free food. I love mine. Just go slow with acclimating your initial ones to the saltwater. If you want fry, be sure to sex them in the store and try for a harem (3:1 female-to-male ratio) - it's super easy to tell females from males visually.
Mine has not been impressive at algae eating what kind did you get?
 
Yes I love mine. Mine is kept with a Clown Tang, Yellow Tang, Niger Trigger, Snowflake Eel and some other aggresive fish. It never gets bothered, and it eats like a pig, including nori and eats algae off the glass like how tangs / certain gobies and blennies do
 
My impressive alage eating molly is a dalmation I converted. He's at least doubled in size in the last 8-12 months since I got him and converted him to 1.026 salinity.
 
I have dalmatian lyretail mollies (and one adult female creamsicle lyretail, just for the interesting genetic variation in the off-spring). My original adult stock is from Petco and adapted to saltwater. The babies that have been born and grown up in SW are much larger and hardier in my experience; I suspect they've simply had a healthier and more enriched rearing environment in my tanks than the Petco mollies.

They are relentless algae eaters, to the extent that my office tank has never gone through the "uglies" - the babies in particular put everything in their mouths (including my hand when I stick it in the tank; they're as bad as cleaner shrimp). I need to split my colony again soon as the latest batch hits sexual maturity (I try to avoid too much in-breeding) and am contemplating moving a few of the larger fry over to my reef tank to do a bit of lawn mowing...
 
Answers on acclimation time are all over the place, from very short (literally some people dump them right in) to extremely long (i.e., placing them in a QT and slowly raising the salinity over a period of 1-2 weeks).

Personally, I've had a lot of success with about 5 hours going from fresh to full salt. It's important to have a heater in with them, as they tend to stress easily if their water gets chilled, and I sometimes feed just a little about halfway through. I've had really good luck with that procedure, but I don't think there's any good objective work out there on what really works and what's least stressful for them physiologically. I monitor them the entire 5 hours, but try to keep the lights off and their bucket covered with an easily moved peephole to check in on them.
 

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