Mollies for hair algae control in frag tank?

[Origami]

Has anybody here every tried this? I read about this the other day - acclimating black mollies to saltwater and using them to control soft algae (like hair algae) - and was curious if anybody here has tried it.

[jason the filter freak]

I have acclimated mollies into saltwater but have not tried to get them to eat hair algae. I hear these eat algae though.

 

In all seriousness go for it, with a nice slow acclimation you've got a cool expirement, if you lose them you're out what $1-$2 a piece, and if you decide you don't want them they are rather slow fish.

[capsfan]

 

Maybe that is the answer to my problems!

[Sugar Magnolia]

I tried it, but my algae problem was bryopsis. They wouldn't touch it - no surprise there. I went for it because I read so may things about how successful it was for others for hair algae. IMO, it can't hurt to try it and if it doesn't work out you can always pass them on to someone else. The FOWLR at our local hospital has several breeding mollies in their tank. Neat addition.

[tsprice82]

I acclimated two mollies to keep my quarantine tank active. It was very easy, I dripped them for 8 hours. They never seemed stressed at all and did great.

[GaryL]

never tried for algae but i had a few when i first started my tank some odd years ago and they lived a little over a yer..and one spit out some babies(live bearers)

[sen5241b]

I tried it, but my algae problem was bryopsis. They wouldn't touch it - no surprise there. I went for it because I read so may things about how successful it was for others for hair algae. IMO, it can't hurt to try it and if it doesn't work out you can always pass them on to someone else. The FOWLR at our local hospital has several breeding mollies in their tank. Neat addition.

 

 

The royal urchin will eat bryopsis. They are no easy to find. 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates will also get rid of bryopsis. Mine has slowed in its growth but its no gone.

 

Mollies are brackish water fish. You might try hypo salinity to help them survive in a salt water tank.

[treesprite]

If you want some already acclimated living in saltwater, Tropical Fish World in Gaithersburg has some.

[sen5241b]

Mollies breed very easily.

[reefmontalvo]

I noticed the mollies also in the Green Briar Petco. I just thought some a-hole who threw them in there as an experiment to see if how long they would last in saltwater but in stead they were busy eating all the hair algae and hanging out. I will have to stop by and pick up the little guys.

Edited January 28, 2009 by reefmontalvo

[treesprite]

Mollies breed very easily.

According to the literature, they breed even faster when in a saltwater tank. The ones I had did have a big batch of babies in my refugium.... I'm assuming the babies were sucked in by the return. For a while I thought about keeping the mollies and using them as a live food factory.

[gastone]

Tom,

 

I tried it a few years ago. In addition to pest algae control, my thought was to use the babies to feed to any salt water predators. They survived in my fuge and even had a few broods. Unfortunately I didn't provide a place for the babies to grow out and pumps quickly devoured them. The parents (2 females/1 male) didn't last too long either, somewhere in the neighborhood of a few months. To boot, in my situation I didn't notice any change in any of my pest algae. In the future, I'll try it again, but mostly to feed the offspring to either an frogfish/lion/grouper/etc.

 

G.

[Origami]

Thanks, all. I think I'm going to put a flame fin tang in my frag tank just to keep things clean.