Aclimatising Mollys

[kubora666]

im maturing a marine tank,
and i can only get hold of tropical mollys to mature it,
i know theres a way to aclimatise them, i just dont want to do it wrong and waste poor fish lives.

could someone run me through it please?

 

[SJ2K]

Mollies arnt marine fish, if you want to mature the tank do it without the use of fish Any FW fish you put in there will die very shortly after (even though mollies can live in brackish, marines a large step).

Mature it either with artificial ammonia source or buying uncured live rock and let the die-off mature it.

 

[kubora666]

really?
my dad used marine mollys to kickstart his.
im using some of his mature reef water and gravel.
i know what im doing marinewise, its just i cant get hold of the marine mollys,
and i remember reading somewhere that you can convert the freshwater mollys to live in marine water
through slow and careful aclimitisation. i just not sure exactly how

 

[SJ2K]

Fair enough, guess this is news to me, you might be better off in the marine section then.

 

[kj23502]

My lfs actually had a molly in their marine tank. Probably just drip aclimatize it...that's my best guess. I've read somewhere on here that some fish can aclimatize fast and I would assume mollies would b/c they can live in such a wide range.... That some can can adjust ph swings up to 4 levels in a few hours. I think it'd be worth a shot to drip ac. the fish. It won't be any different than cycling a tank w/them. They go through the ammonia "burns" and nitrite spikes.

Otherwise you could use pure ammonia diluted w/water like someone suggested earlier.

 

[kubora666]

so if i float it like usual, but slowly mix
say every 10 minutes put some of the marine water in the bag. let the fish relax. and so until its salty enough. then release it?
mollies are hardy.
i know my dad aclimatised a tropical one once because the LFS's were out of marine ones =P
but hes out so i cant ask him until tomorow night

 

[TylerFerretLord]

Mollies are great fish for brackish/marine, they'll even breed in it.

Some say you can just toss them in, but it would be better if you just did it like you would for a normal sensitive fish; Drip acclimation over an hour.

 

[@ombomb]

there is absolutely no need to use fish to cycle a marine tank, it's MUCH easier than freshwater, you just add water and live rock, leave it a few weeks and that's it. no need to add ammonia or anything like that, the die off from the live rock provides the ammonia source and the rock should already be loaded with bacterial.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

Oh, wait, this is for cycling? I thought he meant to use them to age the tank until it was more stable.