Tokis-Phoenix
^_^
(Yes i know this is a livebearer section thing, but...)
Basically i often see people advising others about salt and mollys and saying things like "You have to put aquarium salt with mollys for them to be healthy" or "if you don't use salt with mollys they will get sick" etc, but this is not the case with my experiences with them and salt.
I have been keeping standard mollys ever since i started fish keeping and they are some of my favorite fish, my current mollys i have had for about over a year and a half now and never have they been ill once. No whitespot, fungus, fin rot, velvet, columnaris- nothing. On top of this i have never ever used aquarium salt once for anything in any of my tanks- my 2 female mollys have always been the healthiest and most active fish i have ever had and my male molly is doing quite well too considering he's 5yrs old, although he's always a bit on the skinny side but i think thats due to his age.
The thing with aquarium salt is that, if its true that you can only have healthy mollys if you use salt with them, then why are my mollys so healthy? I do not think its true that you have to use salt with them for them to be happy and healthy.
I understand that if you did use it, it might make them seem a bit more "perkier", but that is also true for many other things- adding bogwood with tannins makes the majority of fish healthier, adding live plants will help keep your fish healthier, adding extra filtration to your tank will make your fish seem healthier- but thats not to say that you have to have any of these to have healthy fish, its more than easy to have healthy fish as long as you keep water quality good and you give them a varied nutritious diet and lots of space.
Its just realy bugging me when people say "you HAVE to have aquarium salt with mollys to be healthy", most of the time when people say this the person getting this advice imediatly adds a heap of aquarium salt to their tank and doesn't take into consideration that their tetras, corys or plecs or other scaless fish are not going to fair well from this.
Im only speaking for standard mollys here as they are all i have kept in the way of mollys, it may be a different case for sailfin mollys i don't know but i wouldn't expect so- a while back i was reading an artcile in the National Geographic magazine on some amazon adventure into the jungles or somthing, it actually showed pictures of sailfin mollys in their natural habitat living in a bizarre tropical ponds connected by an underwater river system that lead down to the sea- it had pictures of sailfin mollys living in both freshwater habitats in the jungle ponds itself and also living in the more brakish rivers that lead down to the sea.
It stated that the mollys preferred to breed in the fresh water systems but lived on a more general basis in the more brackish ones, the female mollys too also preffered to live in the freshwater systems while the males only realy came to them when they were interested in breeding.
So in a sense, they can happily and healthily live in both brackish and freshwater although it stated they weren't truly brackish fish and the salt contents weren't very high in the brackish water systems.
I would like to hear your opinions on this debate, and wether you believe you have to have mollys in brackish water to be healthy or wether you think that it is more or less so for sailfin or standard mollys in either of the systems etc
.
Basically i often see people advising others about salt and mollys and saying things like "You have to put aquarium salt with mollys for them to be healthy" or "if you don't use salt with mollys they will get sick" etc, but this is not the case with my experiences with them and salt.
I have been keeping standard mollys ever since i started fish keeping and they are some of my favorite fish, my current mollys i have had for about over a year and a half now and never have they been ill once. No whitespot, fungus, fin rot, velvet, columnaris- nothing. On top of this i have never ever used aquarium salt once for anything in any of my tanks- my 2 female mollys have always been the healthiest and most active fish i have ever had and my male molly is doing quite well too considering he's 5yrs old, although he's always a bit on the skinny side but i think thats due to his age.
The thing with aquarium salt is that, if its true that you can only have healthy mollys if you use salt with them, then why are my mollys so healthy? I do not think its true that you have to use salt with them for them to be happy and healthy.
I understand that if you did use it, it might make them seem a bit more "perkier", but that is also true for many other things- adding bogwood with tannins makes the majority of fish healthier, adding live plants will help keep your fish healthier, adding extra filtration to your tank will make your fish seem healthier- but thats not to say that you have to have any of these to have healthy fish, its more than easy to have healthy fish as long as you keep water quality good and you give them a varied nutritious diet and lots of space.
Its just realy bugging me when people say "you HAVE to have aquarium salt with mollys to be healthy", most of the time when people say this the person getting this advice imediatly adds a heap of aquarium salt to their tank and doesn't take into consideration that their tetras, corys or plecs or other scaless fish are not going to fair well from this.
Im only speaking for standard mollys here as they are all i have kept in the way of mollys, it may be a different case for sailfin mollys i don't know but i wouldn't expect so- a while back i was reading an artcile in the National Geographic magazine on some amazon adventure into the jungles or somthing, it actually showed pictures of sailfin mollys in their natural habitat living in a bizarre tropical ponds connected by an underwater river system that lead down to the sea- it had pictures of sailfin mollys living in both freshwater habitats in the jungle ponds itself and also living in the more brakish rivers that lead down to the sea.
It stated that the mollys preferred to breed in the fresh water systems but lived on a more general basis in the more brackish ones, the female mollys too also preffered to live in the freshwater systems while the males only realy came to them when they were interested in breeding.
So in a sense, they can happily and healthily live in both brackish and freshwater although it stated they weren't truly brackish fish and the salt contents weren't very high in the brackish water systems.
I would like to hear your opinions on this debate, and wether you believe you have to have mollys in brackish water to be healthy or wether you think that it is more or less so for sailfin or standard mollys in either of the systems etc
.
