# black molly to cycle salt water tank



## oyf709

I just wanna see if any of you try this before. Couple mnths ago I saw couple back molly in IPU and was in a salt water tank. I was very suprise and start searching online, found lots info regarding people using black molly to cycle their tank. I am just testing it right now with a small nano tank. (Not trying to kill the fish to test it if it work. I just very interest to see this somewhat brakish water fish in a pure salt water enviroment). I also read that black molly is a great food source for the rest of the fish as other fish will take the molly fry.

I had the tank running for a week now, got the black molly in the tank and able to survive the transfer from fresh to salewater. I dripped it for close to 8 hrs(lots ppl suggest to just dump them in and again I am not trying to kill them, so I rather see them live). This morning I alrdy found 5 fries in the tank =.=. I am keeping the once a week water change at this moment as I do to all my smaller tanks. I will see if they can make thru the cycle stage.

I would love to hear anyone ever try this method before and how was their fish at the end. (dead, alive..etc)


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## George

oyf709 said:


> I just wanna see if any of you try this before. Couple mnths ago I saw couple back molly in IPU and was in a salt water tank. I was very suprise and start searching online, found lots info regarding people using black molly to cycle their tank. I am just testing it right now with a small nano tank. (Not trying to kill the fish to test it if it work. I just very interest to see this somewhat brakish water fish in a pure salt water enviroment). I also read that black molly is a great food source for the rest of the fish as other fish will take the molly fry.
> 
> I had the tank running for a week now, got the black molly in the tank and able to survive the transfer from fresh to salewater. I dripped it for close to 8 hrs(lots ppl suggest to just dump them in and again I am not trying to kill them, so I rather see them live). This morning I alrdy found 5 fries in the tank =.=. I am keeping the once a week water change at this moment as I do to all my smaller tanks. I will see if they can make thru the cycle stage.
> 
> I would love to hear anyone ever try this method before and how was their fish at the end. (dead, alive..etc)


Using live fish (molly or not) to cycle a tank is cruel and unnecessary. You can achieve the same result by adding some food in the tank during cycling without any fish.


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## Nanokid

despite it being a cycle fish or not - i know they can live in salt water... i found live mollys in 100% saltwater while snorkeling in mexico. weather they can live there long term i do not know. ( they were close to an estuary) however, they could easily swim back up stream,

i find it odd you are using a cycle fish in saltwater they arent needed.... using live rock has the same effect (best actually) .


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## Rastapus

oyf709 said:


> I just wanna see if any of you try this before. Couple months ago I saw couple back molly in IPU and was in a salt water tank. I was very surprise and start searching online, found lots info regarding people using black molly to cycle their tank. I am just testing it right now with a small nano tank. (Not trying to kill the fish to test it if it work. I just very interest to see this somewhat brackish water fish in a pure salt water environment). I also read that black molly is a great food source for the rest of the fish as other fish will take the molly fry.
> 
> I had the tank running for a week now, got the black molly in the tank and able to survive the transfer from fresh to saltwater. I dripped it for close to 8 hrs(lots ppl suggest to just dump them in and again I am not trying to kill them, so I rather see them live). This morning I already found 5 fries in the tank =.=. I am keeping the once a week water change at this moment as I do to all my smaller tanks. I will see if they can make thru the cycle stage.
> 
> I would love to hear anyone ever try this method before and how was their fish at the end. (dead, alive..etc)


OYF,
Yes, Mollies can survive in full strength saltwater. Livebearers are not the best choice for cycling an aquarium however because they are very sensitive to Ammonia and Nitrite, much more so then other fish. Hobbyists typically use Damselfish to cycle a marine aquarium or they use Ammonia additions to simulate it. A comment was made to use live rock but you would only do so if you were planning a reef, or fish only live rock system. Having live rock in what is planned to be a fish only display comes with it's own set of risks. That being said if you are planning to add live rock then it would function very well as a biological filter.
In the past hobbyists occasionally used mollies to cycle their marine aquarium but it was not very common as Damselfish proved to be much hardier and generally always survived through the cycle while showing no signs of distress. The idea behind any fish induced biological cycle is to maintain levels in order to build bacteria but not have levels so high that the fish's health is affected. I hope we have answered your question.


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## oyf709

well tbh, this isn't a true "cycle" as I introduce half of the water from my existing tank and also had my existing filter on the exiting tank. the only thing that is new are couple lbs of LR and couple inch of sand which I had it washed and dry from the past. I had tested everything, other than the nitrate is a bit high all others are at 0. I really just amazed by the 2 mollies I saw at ur store like few mnths back. That is the main reason I want to try this, and just got the idea of using it to semi cycle the tank as I saw it somewhere online. Jsut one question for u tho, are the fries be good food source for the fish I will keep with them? such as Clown or maybe even Cardinals?


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## beaux

I used 2 white lyre tail mollies when i first started my reef and as with anything i have found since i started my first freshwater tank..lol. Everyone has a diferent view on it. It worked well for me my coral banded shrimp loved the babies for food i think. When i finaly added some other marine fish about a year later i took them back to the store though. Worked good for me.. just sayin!


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## Rastapus

oyf709 said:


> well tbh, this isn't a true "cycle" as I introduce half of the water from my existing tank and also had my existing filter on the exiting tank. the only thing that is new are couple lbs of LR and couple inch of sand which I had it washed and dry from the past. I had tested everything, other than the nitrate is a bit high all others are at 0. I really just amazed by the 2 mollies I saw at ur store like few mnths back. That is the main reason I want to try this, and just got the idea of using it to semi cycle the tank as I saw it somewhere online. Jsut one question for u tho, are the fries be good food source for the fish I will keep with them? such as Clown or maybe even Cardinals?


I have no idea about the Mollies you saw at IPU, I suspect they were feeding a newly arrived predator. It would not be a normal site, thats for sure. I suppose you could raise fry to feed to other marine fish but Clowns and Cardinals will take prepared foods. The only time we encourage live food use in the store is if we are feeding fish that are naturally predators and perhaps are unwilling to accept prepared foods.


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## oyf709

ah ic, but no when i was in ur store they were in the smaller tank near the shark tank, those one that usually got anemones, but that day there were only a mashroom and couple balck mollies, so I asked the guy in store and ask wat are these fish, cuz they look like mollies to me but i never thought they can be live in salt water.


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## Rastapus

oyf709 said:


> ah ic, but no when i was in ur store they were in the smaller tank near the shark tank, those one that usually got anemones, but that day there were only a mashroom and couple balck mollies, so I asked the guy in store and ask wat are these fish, cuz they look like mollies to me but i never thought they can be live in salt water.


Hmm, no idea why they were there except as food. Maybe they jumped from the other side! ;-)


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## Aquaman

Rastapus said:


> OYF,
> Yes, Mollies can survive in full strength saltwater. Livebearers are not the best choice for cycling an aquarium however because they are very sensitive to Ammonia and Nitrite, much more so then other fish. Hobbyists typically use Damselfish to cycle a marine aquarium or they use Ammonia additions to simulate it. A comment was made to use live rock but you would only do so if you were planning a reef, or fish only live rock system. Having live rock in what is planned to be a fish only display comes with it's own set of risks. That being said if you are planning to add live rock then it would function very well as a biological filter.
> In the past hobbyists occasionally used mollies to cycle their marine aquarium but it was not very common as Damselfish proved to be much hardier and generally always survived through the cycle while showing no signs of distress. The idea behind any fish induced biological cycle is to maintain levels in order to build bacteria but not have levels so high that the fish's health is affected. I hope we have answered your question.


First off...(3 things ) ...because you capitalized OYF I thought it was lik LOL or BRB or something ...even googled and wiikee whatevered it  only to realize i was oyf . . secondly could one not use live sand v/s life rock ? ( I know nothing about it ..) Been wanting to go that way ( salt  ) for some time


Rastapus said:


> Hmm, no idea why they were there except as food. *Maybe they jumped from the other side! ;-)*


Thirdly...Thats gotta be the funniest thing i've seen come out of your finger tips....seriously 
bill


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