How to properly add sea salt to the water?

[Barry Tetra]

Hi everyone, I just started the saltwater aquarium with my saltwater mollies.

I realized that I add salt probably the wrong way so can you guys help me out?

I bought the reef salt and it doesn’t say how much I have to add on the package, what I normally do is I pour the salt until the salinity is 32.

Is there any specific dosage or any spoon I can use to match the salinity?

 

[Barry Tetra]

@PheonixKingZ do you know anything about saltwater?

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Not enough to give you any solid advice, sorry...

You will need to wait for @Colin_T or @Chad to login.

 

[Chad]

Is there any specific dosage or any spoon I can use to match the salinity?

There is, it's on the package. Each salt mix has a slightly different amount. I use specific gravity for my measure. I keep my tank at 1.025. My salt mix is set to do 1.022 if I use 1/2 cup of salt per gallon made. So I have to use a bit more than that and measure it.

I keep a reef tank with inverts so the salinity needs to be higher. If you do not plan on keeping corals, sea stars, etc you can keep it lower than mine. 1.020 will work just fine and will likely be better for molly since they are not salt water fish.

I guess that is important to mention. There isn't actually such a fish as a "salt water molly". Meaning this is the same molly people keep who keep them in freshwater. They are actually a brackish water fish, living in estuaries. The best molly, and really the only ones I recommend for marine, are the sailfin molly. It's two groups, Poecilia latipinna and Poecilia velifera. You often see "Mexican sailfin molly" for sale, that is the one to try. This process of acclimation to marine is difficult on the fish. If are lucky you got some that have been living in salt for a while. They have the best chance. If you are taking once from freshwater and acclimating them yourself it is a very slow process.

 

[Barry Tetra]

There is, it's on the package.

There isn’t, it’s the “made in Thailand” brand that doesn’t seems to have anything on the package other than their logo

Most Thai made stuff are cheap and doesn’t seems to have ingredients on the back of the package...

I guess that is important to mention. There isn't actually such a fish as a "salt water molly".

It took me about 2-3 weeks to finally acclimated them to saltwater, quite fast tbh.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

So you switched a freshwater Molly to a saltwater Molly!??

 

[Chad]

There isn’t, it’s the “made in Thailand” brand that doesn’t seems to have anything on the package other than their logo

Most Thai made stuff are cheap and doesn’t seems to have ingredients on the back of the package...

It took me about 2-3 weeks to finally acclimated them to saltwater, quite fast tbh.

2-3 weeks is perfect. It can be done faster, some do it in hours, but I like a slow, slow process.

As for the salt, well, if they don't say then you have to do it the painful way which is to mix a little, let it settle, test it, add some more. I personally would not use salt that didn't have clear instructions. But that's me. For the last 20 years I've used Reef Crystals from Instant Ocean exclusively. It is a stable product with very clear instructions and known quality assurance processes.

 

[Chad]

So you switched a freshwater Molly to a saltwater Molly!??

Brackish fish can be acclimated to full marine. I have two green spotted scat in my tank.

The brackish puffers can also be acclimated.

Not all molly do it well though. So I recommend sticking with the sailfin.

 

[Barry Tetra]

Thanks for the helping me Chad!

Interesting youtube channel!

 

[Barry Tetra]

How many livebearer can tolerate brackish and marine conditions?

can you explain more about this? @emeraldking

 

[emeraldking]

How many livebearer can tolerate brackish and marine conditions?

can you explain more about this? @emeraldking

There are more livebearers that occur in both freshwaters and brackish waters in free nature. So, not just mollies. There are swordtails and guppies (to stay tuned to the known species) that even occur in brakish waters besides freshwater. But the same goes for livebearers such as Micropoecilia species, mosquito fish, Poeciliopsis species, a number of goodeid species, even endlers will do fine in brackish water and limia species can be adjusted to brackish water. When it comes to mollies, it's not just Poecilia velifera and Poecilia latipinna that occur in brackish waters as Chad overhere suggested. Mollies such as Poecilia orri, Poecilia vandepolli, Poecilia gilli and some more also occur in brackish waters besides freshwaters.
I also know that at the canary islands swordtails and platies occur in saltwater. For years such fish were released overthere and got adjusted to saltwater. But also inlands overthere in freshwater.
For a number of years ago during one of Europe's largest vivaristic events called "Vivarium", there was a show tank with freshwater angels, mollies and swordtails that were swimming in a marine tank together with marine fish. It was a good way to show that such fish were adaptable to marine water. Such a shame that I didn't take a picture of that tank.

 

[emeraldking]

Btw, do you know that there are way more fish that are sold as being freshwater fish but originally are brackish? It's the commercial trade that is responsible for that. Same thing that a lot of subtropical fish are called tropical by them for decades. You just can not rely on all the info coming from the commercial market.

 

[Chad]

How many livebearer can tolerate brackish and marine conditions?

can you explain more about this? @emeraldking

There are quite a few. Many of them don't do all that well in full marine. Even though there are others I don't recommend them. Some people argue against even doing mollies. It's worth mentioning that some brackish water fish also are converted to fresh water and don't do well there either.

 

[Barry Tetra]

There are quite a few. Many of them don't do all that well in full marine. Even though there are others I don't recommend them. Some people argue against even doing mollies. It's worth mentioning that some brackish water fish also are converted to fresh water and don't do well there either.

Yeah, I’m quite concerning about animal cruelty at this point.

 

[Chad]

Yeah, I’m quite concerning about animal cruelty at this point.

For some fish we can feel certain it is safe, for others it is still an unknown. I have read discussions on this topic and some of the big names in the hobby like Randy Holmes-Farley say it isn't good for most of these fish and it is hard on their osmotic system. We know that fish like the Green Spotted Puffer do terrible in fully freshwater and many fish keepers have successfully kept them long term in marine. That is a species I feel comfortable with. I know certain molly do very well. When it comes to other molly and guppy and the like I am not so sure so can't say.

That is not the same as me saying NO, it's just that if I don't know, and can't say with confidence, then I am not going to recommend something. I want to be confident.