The Molly Test

[Prater]

I have thought about adding mollies to the tank to help graze the occasional algae and add some natural fry food to the rest of the tankmates so tonight I took the $13 plunge and added two dominoe females, two white females, and one black male. I hope they will breed and graze on the hair algea.

I shall see if they survive the tank tonight after two and a half hours of drip acclimation. Once I have the tank configured and mature I will move them to a refugium.

 

[Prater]

So far 4 have emerged from the rock...

 

[papagimp]

I've acclimated them in about 2 1/2 hours before but it's really best to take a little bit longer. I typically acclimate molly's over to saltwater in about 6-8hours. But I never had one breed in my reef tank. Let us know!

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

I've been keeping mollies for about a year now in my saltwater setups. You'll like them. They help keep new growth of algae trimmed down, but they rarely eat the old, gnarled growth. Probably too toxic. The babies are a fun little help. They aren't a huge benefit to the fish, but it's cool and sad to see a baby you don't know you had to come out of the rocks and promptly get eaten by a larger fish. Also, if these aren't wild mollies that you got (and I bet they aren't), this is my personal opinion, but they are extremely stupid. Keep overflows, pump intakes, equipment, etc well guarded or they will find their way in.

 

[Radcat]

I put two in my tank. The first one only lasted a night before it found the mag and the other last about 1 week. I need to get some egg crate or something.

 

[papagimp]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8903273#post8903273 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Travis L. Stevens
this is my personal opinion, but they are extremely stupid.

I'll second that! The last molly I stuck in a saltwater tank ( a little baby black molly) went straight for the intake, minus a screen, and wound up getting himself chomped into alot of little molly bits all over the tank.

You guys are making me miss having molly's around the house, lol.

 

[Prater]

Yeah, the four I have found all look pretty stupid. Suprising that the other fish are leaving them alon so far. My Tomato clown is just ignoring them...

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

My mollies were completely ignored as well.

 

[papagimp]

My last resident molly in my 55g was not ingnored. Or more that she refused to be ignored. it was her tank, nobody elses. But what can the other little fishies do, it was a 4" + molly with an attitude.

Travis, love the beeker avatar! He's my favorite muppet!

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

:lol: Me too. Check back in a second for a different avatar.