Can This Setup Of Tanks Work?

[CTGoldfish]

1 40 gallon tank with 2 female guppies and one male and 2 female swordtails and one male + 6 corys to clean
1 30 gallon tank with 3 female mollies and one male and then 3 female platys and one male + 6 cherry,or amono or ,ghost shrimp

and 1 20-30 gallon tank for breeding with what ever fry I get and dont sell and 5 snails (what type should I get)

 

[drobbyb]

I don't see any reason why those wouldn't work.

There are many types of snails, and each one is unique. It all depends on what you are looking for in a snail.

 

[mystus]

I believe mollies are brackish water so i dont think you should keep them with the platys. if you want some fry to live get them some plants like java moss.

 

[arobinson1984]

Mollie do prefer brackish water, but so many fish shops are now raising them in freshwater that they seem to do just fine.


Andy

 

[Curiosity101]

Mollie do prefer brackish water, but so many fish shops are now raising them in freshwater that they seem to do just fine.

In my super uber soft sheffield water I had nothing but trouble with mollies. I have a KH of about 1-2...and GH of 3

So although I would never say they are/have to be in brackish tanks. They are likely to suffer in anything under a medium hardness of water.

 

[OldMan47]

No salt added tank of mollies. Get real. They tolerate salt well but do best in fresh water. They are fresh water fish. This is not a theory or some trash advice I found on the internet, it is experience.

 

[CTGoldfish]

No salt added tank of mollies. Get real. They tolerate salt well but do best in fresh water. They are fresh water fish. This is not a theory or some trash advice I found on the internet, it is experience.

holy cow that's a big mommy compared to her fry
thanx for your answer

 

[zophie]

Well, about the "Do molly's need salt thing", I think that they can live very well in sallt water, but can also live in fresh-water. The water just has to be hard. If it go's to 7.0, or below, they will not be feeling so good. Mind you, if you have a steady pH of 7.0 or even less, with good filtration and happy fish in good quality water, i'm sure Molly's could survive fine in 6.5!
As for the other tank, the set-up looks good, I like that yu're not over crowding- that leads to aggresion, especially in the Male swordtail, and mabey the Male Platy. As for snails, many will do, try not to just look at Apple Snails, also consider Mystery, Bladder, etc. There's a great article on snails in the Begginers Resource center- check it out!
Talk to me if you need any more help,

Zophie

 

[OldMan47]

Mollies can survive and thrive in a reef tank. They are what is called euryhaline meaning that they are very adaptable to differing salt concentrations. That does not mean that you would want to add any salt to their tank though, at least not unless some fish in the tank needed salt as a medication. Salt is a good treatment for ich as it happens and is far less toxic to most fish than the patent medicines sold as ich treatments. The idea that mollies need salt comes from 2 places.

The first is that they can indeed tolerate very high salt concentrations so people figure they need that salt.

The second thing that leads to that conclusion is that they do not do well in the very soft water you would use for breeding tetras. One easy way to raise the mineral content of water is by using salt and sea salt will also raise the pH quite a bit which would suit a molly fairly well. Any of the common livebearers, including mollies, will do better in a high pH hard water setting so sea salt works when the fish are able to tolerate it the way pet shop mollies can.

Do not generalize that tolerance for salt to just any molly. There are over 20 separate species of fish with a common name of molly and some of them cannot tolerate much salt at all so using that generalization is dangerous for those fish. I have both domestic pet shop mollies and wild type mollies in my tanks. None of them gets any added salt at all. All of them thrive and reproduce freely.

 

[drobbyb]

You can take what Oldman47 says to the bank. He's not just spouting off what he has heard, rather he is speaking from a combination of many years of experience and what he has thoroughly researched.

There are many "myths" like this all around the hobby.