fed mollie fry

"mollie" is a fairly broad term...theres several different species..and those species intermix (and can w guppys as well)..

mollienesia sphenops is usualy the cheep "black mollie" sold in pet shops though and can be found in anything from FW to full out SW.

almost all my tanks, even those with goldfish varitys, have at least some salt in the water. at 1tblsp per 5g of aquarium salt the only difference I have seen with guppys is that there broods have fewer fry...albet they have them just as often.

with mollies, usualy the stronger the salt content, the bigger size they reach, but that also depends a bit on varity.

about 22 or 23yrs ago, i kept a pair of seahorses (sry cant tell you the varity idk) in a tank with a trio of mollies (sphenops) for them to eat the mollie fry and suplimented it with brine shrimp once a week (seems like it was once a week anyway) though w the saltwater im sure some of those brine shrimp were there for days after.

I kept the tank for 2yrs, and i know they reproduced at least once, however i honestly cant remember exactly how many times...,anyway there offspring were a flop at the LFS I was raising them for (nobody wanted to go through the trouble of a SW tank in this area at the time) and I eventualy gave the pair back to him(he had bought them in the first place).

this tank had 0 live rock..and the sand was regular playground sand...so what they ate was exactly what I gave them..
 
interesting you were able to keep them in the main display tank . I have given that some thought but was concerned they would out compete the s/h for food.
 
interesting you were able to keep them in the main display tank . I have given that some thought but was concerned they would out compete the s/h for food.


IDK as I would call it a main display tank lol...but if you mean were the mollies in the same tank as the Seahorses, then yes.

there were exactly 3 grown mollies (mollienesia sphenops) and there fry when they had them.

as for outcompete, im sure they got all the food for the seahorses they wanted lol, but they were also fed flake food so they werent super interested in there own fry......im sure they got all the brine shrimp they wanted though.

I would stress 2 things here, first off all the sea horses were spot fed the brine shrimp w one of those suction things you give meds to a baby with. I would set a light up in a corner of the hatching jar and collect them as consentrated as I could, then get real close to the sea horses and "spray" them out. had I just poured them in....idk if the sea horses would have gotten them before the mollies ate them all :/...I also fed the mollies first and spot fed the sea horses while the mollies were eating.

the other point would be, that at the time there wasnt alot of info avalible, not nearly as much or easy as there is now. there are dozens of people on this board who have had far more of them than i have had. not to mention have lots more experence.

this was 1 pair, over 20yrs ago, and I just kinda flew by the seat of my pants with them.......if i were to get them now, I would sure as heck gain as much info from these guys on here as I could before hand.
 
That's odd that you could get standard sized seahorses to eat newly hatched brine shrimp.
I have more than 20 standard seahorses and none will touch the brine unless they are about 1/2 size or larger.
I've not heard anyone on the org getting seahorses to eat nauplii other than fry and dwarfs.
 
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