Mollies?

[rbrusletto]

haha, wow

look what got started...

anybody *****ing about someone elses habits, or personal choices, ****.

do you feed shrimp to fish? they too were once an animal. is it inhumane to feed crickets to snakes, or whatever the hell eats em?

I started this thread because I want peoples personal opinions, not bashing.

For what it's worth, I did a three hour drip acclimation, and everybody is fine(5 black mollies), except one of them decided to ride the water slide tube down to the sump... he must like it down there, was pretty happy..

 

[Markieb]

There are some really pretty mollies that can be found like the albino sailfins. You asked about frag tanks? But I think I am hearing some people are actually using them in the main tank? Cool idea. I had thought about it myself a while back because of the live food (Babies) benifits.)

 

[rbrusletto]

I had heard this as well, considering the frag tank I didn't want snails, crabs nocking over frags, I figured I'd try the mollies as a algae eater, right after I put them in they were hitting the algae.. now... to get the one out of the sump..

 

[MarkD40]

I was thinking about putting Mollies in my refugium to eat algae. If they breed would their fry feast on my large pod population? I would not want that.

 

[rbrusletto]

Another great question.. I'm curious too..

if the damsel gives them hell, I'll probably move them to the refugium

 

[MThompson]

Mollies are naturally insectivores, preferring to eat aquatic larvae as they swim to the surface and metamorph into adults (i.e. - mosquitoes, mayflies, etc.). Just look at the shape of their heads and mouth....flat head for sitting on the surface, with upturned mouth for plucking stuff of the surface.

That being the case, they will quickly make use of any 'pod scurrying around. They will pick at algae as well, but I am not convince they are doing this to eat the algae, but rather are digesting the bacterial /organic slime....with the algae just passing through. Most fish efficient at eating algae have down-turned mouths that are more scraper-like (for scraping algae of stuff) - they will also have a very long intestinal tract (~5-8X body length when stretched out). I will check next time one of mine dies.

I use my mollies for food production - I know I am inhumane too! I keep 4 females and 1 male in a 5gal bucket with a small foam/air lift filter in it. They get fed a marine flake food with added vita-chem and selcon - so that the little babies are nice and nutritious. For acclimation, I just brought them home, put them and their bag water in the 5gal bucket, and ran water through airline tubing (not knotted or dripping) until the level I needed.

Throwing them right in is not inhumane either (I don't cause they're $2 around here), the fish have the ability to pump salt out (for seawater) and keep salt in (for freshwater)....some fish just don't drink enough water (when going from F/W to S/W) so they don't osmoregulate properly and die. This is OT, and a bit 'sciencey' I guess......But maybe I am biased because I kill a lot of fish in my line of work....mostly by pithing! AHHHHH call PETA!

 

[adtravels]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11965551#post11965551 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MThompson
Mollies are naturally insectivores, preferring to eat aquatic larvae as they swim to the surface and metamorph into adults (i.e. - mosquitoes, mayflies, etc.). Just look at the shape of their heads and mouth....flat head for sitting on the surface, with upturned mouth for plucking stuff of the surface.

That being the case, they will quickly make use of any 'pod scurrying around. They will pick at algae as well, but I am not convince they are doing this to eat the algae, but rather are digesting the bacterial /organic slime....with the algae just passing through. Most fish efficient at eating algae have down-turned mouths that are more scraper-like (for scraping algae of stuff) - they will also have a very long intestinal tract (~5-8X body length when stretched out). I will check next time one of mine dies.

I use my mollies for food production - I know I am inhumane too! I keep 4 females and 1 male in a 5gal bucket with a small foam/air lift filter in it. They get fed a marine flake food with added vita-chem and selcon - so that the little babies are nice and nutritious. For acclimation, I just brought them home, put them and their bag water in the 5gal bucket, and ran water through airline tubing (not knotted or dripping) until the level I needed.

Throwing them right in is not inhumane either (I don't cause they're $2 around here), the fish have the ability to pump salt out (for seawater) and keep salt in (for freshwater)....some fish just don't drink enough water (when going from F/W to S/W) so they don't osmoregulate properly and die. This is OT, and a bit 'sciencey' I guess......But maybe I am biased because I kill a lot of fish in my line of work....mostly by pithing! AHHHHH call PETA!

 

[rbrusletto]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11965551#post11965551 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MThompson
Mollies are naturally insectivores, preferring to eat aquatic larvae as they swim to the surface and metamorph into adults (i.e. - mosquitoes, mayflies, etc.). Just look at the shape of their heads and mouth....flat head for sitting on the surface, with upturned mouth for plucking stuff of the surface.

That being the case, they will quickly make use of any 'pod scurrying around. They will pick at algae as well, but I am not convince they are doing this to eat the algae, but rather are digesting the bacterial /organic slime....with the algae just passing through. Most fish efficient at eating algae have down-turned mouths that are more scraper-like (for scraping algae of stuff) - they will also have a very long intestinal tract (~5-8X body length when stretched out). I will check next time one of mine dies.

I use my mollies for food production - I know I am inhumane too! I keep 4 females and 1 male in a 5gal bucket with a small foam/air lift filter in it. They get fed a marine flake food with added vita-chem and selcon - so that the little babies are nice and nutritious. For acclimation, I just brought them home, put them and their bag water in the 5gal bucket, and ran water through airline tubing (not knotted or dripping) until the level I needed.

Throwing them right in is not inhumane either (I don't cause they're $2 around here), the fish have the ability to pump salt out (for seawater) and keep salt in (for freshwater)....some fish just don't drink enough water (when going from F/W to S/W) so they don't osmoregulate properly and die. This is OT, and a bit 'sciencey' I guess......But maybe I am biased because I kill a lot of fish in my line of work....mostly by pithing! AHHHHH call PETA!

Thanks for the info!

Update: day2 w/ the mollies in the tank, and they're good, I removed the damsel though as he was bullying as usual.