Old post, but... I still have 1 molly. She doesn't do much covering on algae at all. She does the work of, well every snail and asterina cleans more algae in an hour than she does in a week.
So probably not recommended then.
They can add a cool splash of color to the tank sometimes. Better suited for brackish usually though from my understanding unless you get one already fully acclimated to salt. Mine didn't last long when I tried acclimating them. It took me several weeks adding a tablespoon or so of salt a day to a 20 gallon. Got it up to 1.016 and they started slowly withering away. Dropped it back down some and they started getting healthier. I wonder if wild caught would work better than tank raised 10000000th generation.
I think the smaller the better the chance. The molly I have now, she was a fry when I got her. Eli ate all of her brothers and sisters, she's a lone survivor. The pineapple mollies were medium sized and were not doing well with 1.021. They would lay at the bottom slowly breathing. I assume it caused Eli to over eat, they were all gone by morning.
My lfs will sometimes have dalmatian mollies in the salt section, $15 is too much for a molly though. I e heard black acclimate better. I tried to quickly acclimate some a while back and if the salt didn't kill one, the dottyback did. That was in the 15. Ten dottyback needs a new home soon. The 40 lost both to the salt.
I heard the drab colored ones usually do better in salt/brackish tanks too. Dalmatians and Blacks are the ones I usually hear success stories with but I have seen pictures of the Red Swordtail mollies and even some of the Lyretail Creamsicles.
There might be some facts to that.
5 dollars alone is expensive, Eli was eating 15 - 25 per week work. So glad she eats the mush the other fish eat now.
I should see how the tank does with it's current stock, but they might make a future list.
That's so many! They probably don't need to survive too long if they are food, so brackish is probably more than ok. And if they breed in brackish, all the better.
Sorry to hear that! It sucks coming home from Vacation just to be sick and not have a chance to catch your breath. Get better soon! I'm sick right now too! Been down for about a week at this point but it's not COVID.
