Acclimating mollies and other fish to saltwater

[Leo_ian]

Does anyone have any tips to acclimate mollies and guppies to saltwater? I also have a question if I could acclimate other fish to saltwater. I was thinking bumblebee gobies and knight gobies. My tank is a 20gallon so nano fish only!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

50+ years ago, I tried bumble gobies, but I didn’t understand just how slow you need to go. I now take 3 days just to move marine fish out of hyposalinity (50%). By extrapolation, going full fresh to salt could be as slow as 6 days. I’ve failed getting guppies over to salt in some cases, not sure why. Tilapia move over just fine (grin).
Jay

 

[mattzang]

i've only ever done mollies. i got them from petsmart in freshwater and tossed them in a tank with 1.016~ and then just slowly topped off with saltwater over a week or two until they were at 1.025

didn't lose any that way.. but i have ended up losing most of them within a few months mostly i think via powerhead. they seem to like to hang near powerheads, but don't seem to avoid powerheads either. not strong powerheads either..

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Mollies I just drop in. Have maybe 8 out of 10 success rate

 

[mikereefing]

I acclimate my dalmatian mollies over 2 hours and they do just fine. I make sure they're at least the size of a nickel before I try this. My frag tank has 10 mollies at the moment

 

[FullSend]

Guppies need to be acclimated much slower. I had some success with +.002 a day. If I were to try again, I would set up an ATO to top off with salt water. I would also pause at ~1.016 for a week of two to give them time to adjust/recover. Small consistent changes seem to be the way to go.

If you go too quickly you may temporarily have a fish swimming in seawater but there are dramatic changes in the physical processes a fish needs to employ to survive. The stress could overwhelm them at a later date.

 

[Rednamalas]

While I’ve never done it, I’ve researched adding mollies to my reef, and from what I’ve seen it usually takes a few hours to acclimate them, however guppies may take a few weeks to acclimate as they aren’t as accustomed to saltwater

 

[DeniseAndy]

I read and followed a post about having them for a month and taking about 1-1.5g out each day and adding in 1.025 salinity water. I did this and all acclimated great. Over a month or so in the tank, many died, but I still have two. Doing well. I think corals and powerheads attributed to death. That and my mantis shrimp got really big too.
I began with a 5g tank.

 

[FullSend]

I did this and all acclimated great. Over a month or so in the tank, many died, but I still have two. Doing well. I think corals and powerheads attributed to death.

This has also been my experience. Some fish develop a "wobble" when swimming. They typically disappeared within a week.

 

[josephxsxn]

Jake Adams has a video talking about.

 

[Clownfish_Boy]

I once put a Molly in a saltwater tank with normal salinity, and it not only thrived, but also later after gave birth to a lot of fry. Then later on I put a Leopard Puffer into the tank.... Upon waking the next morning, my wife asked "What happened to all the baby Mollies ?". When I went into the room and looked, I got a good laugh - for there was that new puffer, all swollen up and its sides bulging with all the molly fry that it had eaten ! He had eaten every last one of them. I never could get the puffer over to eating frozen food, and from then on had to feed it live guppies. Then, after a few months, I returned home from work and found the puffer dead on the floor..... I so hated to lose that fish !

 

[ichthyogeek]

Euryhaline fish like guppies and mollies should acclimate just fine. There's enough responses in this thread that I feel no need to say anything about that .

As for acclimating bumblebee and knight gobies to saltwater....I'm iffy about this. I understand that at the very least they are brackish water fish, but I've always seen them as "freshwater fish that venture into brackish water estuaries" and such, rather than "fish that actively live in fresh and salt water". It doesn't help that bumblebee gobies are a complex of species that are hard to identify. Some bumblebee species are full freshwater (that still like hard water), while others are full brackish.

The same can also be said about fish like archerfish. Like, there are some full freshwater species yes. And there are also species that thrive in brackish mangrove swamps. And still more, there are fish that live near the seashore to be considered saltwater.

A better option for a 20 gallon tank might be Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis. They've recently gained some popularity in the hobby, and are a nano euryhaline fish that's NOT a livebearing fish.

 

[Leo_ian]

Euryhaline fish like guppies and mollies should acclimate just fine. There's enough responses in this thread that I feel no need to say anything about that .

As for acclimating bumblebee and knight gobies to saltwater....I'm iffy about this. I understand that at the very least they are brackish water fish, but I've always seen them as "freshwater fish that venture into brackish water estuaries" and such, rather than "fish that actively live in fresh and salt water". It doesn't help that bumblebee gobies are a complex of species that are hard to identify. Some bumblebee species are full freshwater (that still like hard water), while others are full brackish.

The same can also be said about fish like archerfish. Like, there are some full freshwater species yes. And there are also species that thrive in brackish mangrove swamps. And still more, there are fish that live near the seashore to be considered saltwater.

A better option for a 20 gallon tank might be Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis. They've recently gained some popularity in the hobby, and are a nano euryhaline fish that's NOT a livebearing fish.

I have considered them and the pacific blue eyes but I haven’t been able to find them, so if I do I will set them up in my 20 standard with my banggais as dithers instead of guppies there

 

[Leo_ian]

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR REPLIES

 

[Leo_ian]

What do you think would be the bio load of a trio of black mollies compared to a pair of clowns?

 

[ichthyogeek]

Depends on how much you’re feeding. If you feed the fish the same amount, they’re going to produce roughly the same amount of waste. I’d do guppies instead of mollies if you’re concerned about waste though

 

[Zoa_Fisher]

I have a 10g QT tank that I'm able to use to slowly bring them to full seawater over the course of a week. I've always wanted to try bb gobies too but I'm unable to source them locally atm. Although not a fish, I'm planning to see if I can convert Malaysian trumpet snails to full strength seawater. I've heard stories of people finding them still alive months after they've converted their freshwater tanks to salt and they are also used frequently in brackish setups. Just placed an order from someone who sells them already brackish, I'll see how they'll do within a few weeks. If all goes well, I'll have what's essentially breedable dwarf cerith snails

 

[ichthyogeek]

I have a 10g QT tank that I'm able to use to slowly bring them to full seawater over the course of a week. I've always wanted to try bb gobies too but I'm unable to source them locally atm. Although not a fish, I'm planning to see if I can convert Malaysian trumpet snails to full strength seawater. I've heard stories of people finding them still alive months after they've converted their freshwater tanks to salt and they are also used frequently in brackish setups. Just placed an order from someone who sells them already brackish, I'll see how they'll do within a few weeks. If all goes well, I'll have what's essentially breedable dwarf cerith snails

Right, I've been seeing way too many posts like this. Please just do your research and think about the ethics of doing so before adding salt in willy nilly.

Also, dwarf cerith snails are still breedable. It's just harder.

 

[tricky_tran]

@eatsleepreef just did a video about cycling his QT with mollies. Check it out on YouTube.

 

[Leo_ian]

I have three back mollies in my reef now! i have a journal on my method that I will update
its on nano-reef because i use that more