Freshwater Livebearers in Your Reef?

[small alien]

:rollface:

 

[LCP136]

From FW guppies to years of effort to be able to actually keep a living reef. Now stocking it with guppies; the hobby has, indeed come full circle.

HAHAHA

Well said.

 

[Western_reefer]

lol

 

[Baltimore Bryan]

I keep a couple of mollies in my sump for the live food they produce monthly. I don't want to keep them in the display because personally, I feel that mollies/ guppies look unnatural and awkward in a reef, but that's just a personal preference. They acclimated very easily (less than 24 hours) since they are naturally brackish and have been living/ breeding for months. Very easy to care for, I just toss in a few pellets whenever I feed the rest of the tank.
Bryan

 

[small alien]

Do you see fry in the main tank?

+1 on the look being a bit offish.

Speaking of the look, does anyone have any pics?

 

[agreeive?fish]

you think mollies breed like crazy in fresh or brackish tanks...you aint seen nothing yet because they breed even more in full marine conditions and the colors of the offspring seem to be more vibrant when breed in full marine conditions imo / ime mollies do better overall in marine conditions

i have read multiple guppy articles where guppies can tolerate 150% full marine salinity levels i cant say how well they reproduce or how well they thrive because i havent tried it but i do have a batch of guppies that are nearing breeding age that iam gonna slightly increase thier salanity and continue to do so each generation until full marine and see how they due..currently they are in 100% fresh and they are 100's of generations of local water breeding from a local breeder

i have never heard of or seen any platties or swords converted to salt

 

[username in use]

I tried it 2 days ago. Went and bought 2 dalmation mollies and acclimated them over who knows how many hours. Put them in and they were doing famously. That is of course until they both swam into my anemone within 3 minutes of each other

Im going to try guppies in my fuge, Im sure they would love the chaeto for spawning in.

 

[Elysia]

I agree with everyone else on mollies in saltwater -- I was somebody who had tried to keep mollies in freshwater, and they always died sooner rather than later. My saltwater mollies were the healthiest mollies that I ever kept, and their babies were healthy as well. I would never dream of keeping mollies in freshwater again (yes, there are still some small freshwater tanks in the house.)

 

[wdt2000]

My mollie is an algae grazing machine!! Great reef tank fish if you ask me.

 

[Kahuna Tuna]

I have some mollies going in my refugium to feed the dwarf fuzzy lion. Once I get him eating frozen food I will probably lose them.

 

[Baltimore Bryan]

Yea the mollies breed well in saltwater. About once a month, I would find two sets of fry within a few days of one another from my two females. Some make it to the DT, but most just stayed in the fuge so I would scoop out a couple a day and feed to the cardinals until they were gone. I saved all 11 from one batch about a month or two ago, and I am putting them in a spare 29 gallon. Soon I will hopefully have a huge breeding colony that I can pull young ones out of almost daily.
Bryan

 

[namxas]

We have a male guppy that was an escapee from our last hypo treatment (we were using live to supplement frozen since the fish were a bit "off" their feed.

We found the little guy when we were breaking the tank down, so I tossed into our barnacle blenny setup. He has been loving life in there for the past few months now.

 

[small alien]

We have a male guppy that was an escapee from our last hypo treatment (we were using live to supplement frozen since the fish were a bit "off" their feed.

We found the little guy when we were breaking the tank down, so I tossed into our barnacle blenny setup. He has been loving life in there for the past few months now.

I believe it is that very guppy that is the inspiration for this thread! :spin3:

 

[botp2k1]

If you keeps the mollies and guppies in the main tank and there are no larger fish to eat the fry, wouldn't the tank be overfilled with babies shortly?

 

[namxas]

Actually, at least with guppies, I read an article (I want to say it was in Coral Magazine) that said the reproduction rate of guppies in full SW was a lot lower than when kept in full FW or brackish water. The article was on raising live food items.

 

[MCCOOL]

For those of you breeding these in saltwater for a live food source,

what are you feeding? How small of a fish will consume the fry? Clownfish? Anthias? Wrasses?

 

[bryan007]

I used to acclimate mollies within hours as I used to keep them to feed my frogfish.