Saltwater Mollies

[Teresa]

Hi Everyone,

So I have a major problem with hair and bryopsis algae. After reading Will's ad for a hair and bryopsis eating Mollie in the trade section, I ran out to the nearest pet store to try my hand at acclimation. Thanks to Will and a little time, I successfully transformed my freshwater mollie into a saltwater mollie. I figured other people might like to know how to do this, so I added some details and pics to the DIY forum (plus it's 4:30 in the morning and I still can't seem to fall asleep . I will update this post within a couple of days to confirm my success and share whether or not the mollie has helped with my algae problem. The mollie did eat immediately after being placed in saltwater - I think thats a good sign.

Acclimating a Mollie to saltwater - refer to photos below for more details:

1. Buy any freshwater mollie (I liked the looks of the silver lyretail mollies)

2. Create a dripper system. I used a large Styrofoam cup, an air pump plastic adjuster valve, and superglue. I punched the plastic valve into the bottom of the cup. Then I removed the valve and applied superglue around the part that was inserted into the cup. I reinserted the valve and waited for the superglue to dry.

The following directions are from Will

3. Temp acclimate it

4. Pour out half of the water in the bag

5. Set up a drip with saltwater

6. Once the bag gets full pour out half of the water and let it fill again. Do this three times

The drip should be pretty slow, 1 drop per second

PS - I also added a picture of my watchman goby guarding his cave entrance that my new randall shrimp created (Its the mound of sand inside the larger cave)

I would also love to learn how to add the photos to the post themselves so I can include captions and such.

[Teresa]

Ok - so far today - not so good. I found the very thin (i.e. completely dehydrated) mollie stuck to the refugium intake vent this morning . He's still breathing so I'm going to try and save him. I put him in a small betta tank with 1/3-1/2 fresh water and the remainder salt. I added some nutrafin aquaplus and will attempt to feed him later today with garlic soaked food. He's on the bottom but sitting up straight and not upside down yet - wish me luck.

I think I tried to acclimate him too fast. It was 4:30am and I wanted to go to bed, so I added him to the tank after only 2 drips. I've read elsewhere online that you should take no less than 12 hours to acclimate. Assuming he survives, I will attempt the acclimation process again once he's swimming freely in the brackish water.

If anyone has other suggestions on how to help him survive - I'm definitely interested!

[Will]

When i acclimated mine it too me 3-4 hours,

you should also see them pooping alot in the bag as this is a sign that they are converting from fresh to salt, (reorganizing their excretory gear to expell salt instead of retain it)

the longer the drip the higher the chances of success

[Teresa]

This Mollie didn't make it - but i'm going to try again with another one tomorrow. I don't think this one ever acclimated since I didn't see any poop in the bag as I was doing the drip. Will update again after tomorrow.

[caferacermike]

How about attacking the underlying cause of the hair algae instead of the algae itself?

[Will]

How about attacking the underlying cause of the hair algae instead of the algae itself?

why not do both?

(plus once the mollies start having fry = on demand coral and fish food)

but as mike said, you should also look into the cause of your algae as the mollies will not acomplish that task.

Teresa, you may also want to look at carbon dosing as that is what has truely helped my tank out the most.

here is a link on vodka dosing, but there are many solid carbon dosing products out there (will only work if the tank has a skimmer on it)

http://reefkeeping.c.../nftt/index.php

[Will]

Also from the look of your tank, you need more flow.

do you have live rock in the tank or is it fake?

[Teresa]

The main problem is that i just moved everything into the nano from my 29gal. The sand is from my old tank and some of the live rock is 1 year old, but I sold most of it off and have added some fake rocks for structure. I'm starting a refugium in the back with live rock and you can see the chateo in a breeder tank the top corner of the nano(until I get a light for the back). I have an eclipse filter cartridge in the back between the middle and last chamber. I added a circulation pump behind the "cave" rock so you can't see it in the back. I'm not sure how I should direct this flow so any ideas would be welcomed. I've also prepared water to do some changes. The reason I'm interested in the mollies is because I had this hair algae problem in my main tank for almost a year. I would pull out the algae but it always came back. It never covered everything, mostly just the large rock on the very top. I think the stuff is just embedded in this rock and no matter how clean my tank gets - I need something extra to take care of it. Plus I liked the idea of having live food .

Thanks for the thoughts and the link to vodka dosing (I always wondered what you were talking about in your posts

[caferacermike]

The reason I'm interested in the mollies is because I had this hair algae problem in my main tank for almost a year. I would pull out the algae but it always came back.

That's were my statement comes in. If this has been an underlying issue for over a year, something is definitely wrong. Now is the time to step back and take in the whole picture. It is time to review your feeding (or over feeding), lighting, filtration, water change schedule, etc... to see what the main cause is. By adding mollies, or whatever else is claimed to eat algae, you will still have algae. In fact the algae is actually doing a good purpose, most never stop to think about that. It is absorbing excess nutrient within the confined space of the tank and converting it into a living structure. This can actually help prevent your water from fouling even further. You already have an underlying condition, adding a fish will only compound this with yet more waste product and by removing the algae you remove your ability to neutralize the main problem. When you add this fish and it eats the algae then what is breaking down the excess nutrients? Are they instead just fouling the water and creating a toxic environment?

I mention this because we've all been through it before. Algae sucks. Many years ago I had a tank that was absolutely gorgeous. No algae anywhere. I ended up with some frags that came from a tank that was overrun with hair algae. They were fresh cut frags so I figured no algae came with them. My bad. I was overfeeding the tank, this I knew. Yet for the year that it was running as it had, no algae had ever been produced. Well all I needed was a seed, or better yet spore. Once that hair algae took hold, it begin to cover everything. This was almost overnight. Within weeks many of my SPS were suffering from the algae growing over it and choking it back. I tried all kinds of critters from lawn mower blennies, tangs, hermits, 50 large turbo snails, cucumbers, lettuce nudibranchs, sea hares, you name it I probably tried it. All of this only scaled back the algae, never really got rid of it. For example, as the snails would die off-the algae would grow right back in. I then added an ozone generator to the tank to help my skimmer run better. It helped. After a few weeks there was a significant difference. However after moving to a new house I had left it off for a month hoping the algae would go away on it's own. Well one night I felt it was creeping back so I turned the ozone back on. Never really figured out what happened but that night I nuked my entire tank. It was devastating. I shut down all of the lights and had no reason to feed the tank. I cleaned out all the dead stuff I could find and did a 50% water change. I waited almost 6 months before turning on the lights, I couldn't believe that the algae was still there. This is why I don't believe in "3 days of darkness", I went 6 months and it was fine. A little white but it colored up quick.

I picked a weekend and made up enough water to do a 100% water change. I removed about half the tank water and placed it within 4 tubs. In each tub I had a brush with finer bristles, the first was a very stiff cleaning brush. I removed all my rock and scrubbed it within each buck until by the last bucket it appeared to be algae free. I then stirred my sand bed until the water could not be seen through. I then completed draining the tank. I then refilled the tank with half the new water, then arranged the rock work, then completed filling the tank. I then ran a way oversized skimmer for about 2 months and did daily water changes of 5g. On the weekend I would do a 25g water change. After about 3 months of this, my 75g was pristine and algae free. I've been restocking the tank for about a year and I'm very careful about what goes in the tank and what I feed to the tank. Instead of daily feedings, I now only feed once a week. That's including the fish. They are on their own to find bugs, surface algae, worms etcc.. within the tank until I feed them.

It wasn't until I attacked the underlying cause of the outbreak did it go away. All other methods only caused it to scale back until the time was right to grow back. I'm not sure of your feeding schedule, your water changes, or how often you replace the carbon in your little filter cartridge, but I bet you could do more frequent smaller water changes, cut back on any feeding, and that cartridge is exhausted within a week. Carbon is used up almost as fast as it is put into the water. Doing things such as placing an updraft reactor with ferric oxide and Bulk Reef Supply ROX carbon will help remove excess nutrients slowly from the water as though you were doing more water changes. Carbon dosing will see similar results. It's all about getting rid of the nutrients that are feeding the algae within the tank. New bulbs help by not providing a red/yellow spectrum that algae specialize in converting to their foods.

[Teresa]

Thanks for the detailed reply! I have made up enough water to do several 25-35% water changes and will be doing this on a daily basis. Of course I already went out and bought new mollies - did I mention I'm an impulse buyer up above - so I'll carefully monitor the conditions. I also got a male female pair so someone might find one of my mollies in the free trade section soon. I'll keep you updated - thanks for all the advice.

[Teresa]

So time #2 was the charm. I actually took 2 days to acclimate the fish - I felt really bad when the first one was thin due to dehydration (not a fun way to die ). The fish is very pretty - He's a dalmatian lyretail molly - like the one pictured below. Haven't seen him eat any algae yet, but they can't all be winners .

Edited August 3, 2011 by ACampbell
Image removed at copyright holders request.

[+cyrus]

I've done this with mollies in the past. I just started a new batch in my q tank for breeding. I have 7 black ones and as memory serves they will start pooping babies in a few weeks.