Cycling tank with Mollies

[tbone212371]

Has anyone heard of cycling a tank with Black Mollies???
I've read that people have used them but I was just curious????

 

[MadReefer]

Yes, you can cycle with any mollie. Mollies are a brackish water fish and can be acclimated to fresh or salt; most are usually in fresh at stores. One local store sells marine mollies at 2x or 3x the normal price; really ticks me off. I had a pair of orange sailfin mollies in my 55g marine tank and they even spawned a few times. Great food for the other fish as I couldn't catch all the babies. Plus mollies are great at eating algae which was the main reason I bought them.

 

[chase33]

Why would you cycle with them when you can accomplish the same result by cycling without using live fish. Just use a couple of raw shrimps from the grocery store or even some fish food to start the cycle. No fish should be forced to suffer through the cycling of a new tank.

 

[Phyl]

I wouldn't cycle with a live fish. That just seems cruel to me. Especially if you didn't have a long term desire to keep and care for the fish.

 

[tbone212371]

Thanks for the info and opinions.
I was just curious because I just read it in an online article and was just curious.
Thanks.

 

[SteveReef]

Oh, and it seemed to me that Mollies pooped a lot, not too sure, my brother had a dalmation patterned one in his 75g, and it pooped a lot.

 

[jonathan.]

Keeping a few mollies in a reef tank is a fantastic idea, anyway.

They are fantastic at eating ANY type of algae. Even hair algae.

It's why places like Trop keep them in their coral tanks.

Every larger reef tank with a fish or so to spare should have at least one, IMO.

 

[mott768]

mollies need to be acclimated slowly to saltwater.... as far as poo it's a good thing if you have corals..... poo = coral food

 

[jonathan.]

mollies need to be acclimated slowly to saltwater.... as far as poo it's a good thing if you have corals..... poo = coral food

When I did them, I gave them about a 7 hour drip. It worked perfectly as far as I could tell. They were passed along between a few people after I got rid of them. Always did the trick in cleaning algae. A great saltwater tool!

 

[mott768]

mollies need to be acclimated slowly to saltwater.... as far as poo it's a good thing if you have corals..... poo = coral food

When I did them, I gave them about a 7 hour drip. It worked perfectly as far as I could tell. They were passed along between a few people after I got rid of them. Always did the trick in cleaning algae. A great saltwater tool!

I usually tell people to go 12-24hrs but the best way is over the course of 2 weeks slowly going to brackish then to full salt. Same goes for mono's unless you allready buy them brackish.

 

[jonathan.]

mollies need to be acclimated slowly to saltwater.... as far as poo it's a good thing if you have corals..... poo = coral food

When I did them, I gave them about a 7 hour drip. It worked perfectly as far as I could tell. They were passed along between a few people after I got rid of them. Always did the trick in cleaning algae. A great saltwater tool!

I usually tell people to go 12-24hrs but the best way is over the course of 2 weeks slowly going to brackish then to full salt. Same goes for mono's unless you allready buy them brackish.

The last time I ordered Monos and Scats for the Petco in Howell where I work, I did a 7 hour acclimation (basically my full day) and they were extremely healthy and sold. Never heard about deaths, either.

But yes, obviously the longer the acclimation the better, but I'd say a MINIMUM time of 6-8 hours is definitely needed.

Sometimes, you can just throw them right in and they'll live, but I'd never want to risk the life of a fish like that.

 

[ReeferNets]

Backin the day i had a 30 gallon tank filled about 2/3 of the way up. One side was built up to be land sticking out about 10 inches. I had a mono a puffer and a archer fish.

I kept the salt at around 1.021 sometimes after a water change it would go up to 1.023 or .024. After about 6th months it was at 1.026 and i had some small damsels in it.

Monos look great and get big and run in packs too.

 

[reeftank2510]

I agree with the point about cycling a tank with fish. No reason to sacrifice a fish to cycle a tank. I used piece of raw shrimp and also got some garf grunge to get my tank going.

 

[BobCReef]

Mollies is old school. That is how we cyled our tanks back in the seventies. (1970 not 1870 ;D) It can be done and it does work but i ain't going back there again