Are mollys a good idea?

[TESS]

I am going to set up a 180 litre (45 gallon) tank, i already have 8 platys and 2 sucking loaches. I would like to get 2 black and 2 white mollys is this a good choice or will i have problems?.
The reading of my tank i have now is:
ph 7.5
ammonia-nitrite-nitrate cycled
tempreture max 82
tempreture min 78
Would this be ok for mollys as well?
And one more question, can i add aqaurium salt to the tank with sucking loaches in it?
Thanks for your help

 

[Sasha]

Mollies are great community fish, so you shouldn't have any problems with them.

I don't know much about sucking loaches though.

 

[Final Dynazty]

you should drop the Ph to neutral. 7.5 is a little high. but besides that you should be fine. just add a little salt, alot of fish seem to like a little salt in thier tanks.

 

[TESS]

ok thankyou

 

[Germyzero]

They will be fine.

 

[B75]

I've kept mollies for the last 10 years with a ph of 8.0, never had a problem, Mollies are fairly hardy fish and eventually can adapt to their new enviroment.
A little bit of salt sometimes helps but then you also have to think of the other fish that won't like the salt.

 

[laboul]

You might want to read my thread about the nasty mollie that I'm getting rid of...

I would observe the tanks at the shop carefully before you choose your fish. Their individual behavior may change once you get them home but I think the overall mood in the tank will tell you a lot. At my store, the silver lyretail tanks all seem to be very peaceful, while the black mollie tanks have a very different mood.

Don't want to rain on your parade, just choose carefully.

 

[Elisabeth83]

Mollies really need salt...but you have loaches in the tank and they cant tolerate salt

Recently I've been having terrible problems with my mollies. I just found out they needed salt. I never added salt to the tank before.

I took my pleco out and 2 algae eaters and now the tank has only my balloon mollies in it. Since adding the salt...which has only been 3 days...the thinnest and sickest of my mollies has a nice full belly with dark poop and is acting normal.

 

[laboul]

Elizabeth, that's great! Salt seems really controversial to some folks on the forum, but my mollies were also pretty sick without it. One was near death. I think it depends which breeders the shops get them from. Ever since adding salt, it's been much better.

 

[specks]

I also live in East Anglia & have never put salt in my tank. My dad had several tanks for many years & I never saw him use it either. All our mollies & swordtails etc. are happy & healthy. Red sword gave birth again last night just 5 weeks since the last lot.

 

[Raechal]

I also live in East Anglia & have never put salt in my tank. My dad had several tanks for many years & I never saw him use it either. All our mollies & swordtails etc. are happy & healthy. Red sword gave birth again last night just 5 weeks since the last lot.

My dalmation molly gave birth to 7 surviving fry and is pregnant again and she's never had salt in the tank due to cories. She is perfectly fine and is eating healthy and pooping healthy. She was born in freshwater and kept in freshwater at the LPS I got her from so I guess she is used to the freshwater. Now I have 7 fry in a breeding net, just waiting for a week or two until I can put them in the main tank. I will not be able to keep all of them though since it would be overstocking the tank. I will ask my LFS if they will take some of them.

 

[GuppyBoy]

Mollies do need salt. (Especially if you want for them to breed.) When I first started keeping them, I noticed that they very quickly developed white-spot, otherwise. The cause was due to stress caused from there not being any salt in the water. I would suggest adding tonic salt at approximately half a teaspoon per gallon for the first few water changes, in order to allow any other fish to become acclimatised to it, before increasing to 1 teaspoon per gallon. The Pleco I used to keep didn't seem to mind too much, although I did notice that the Neons I had deminished in number, and had to be transfered to another tank.

 

[GSD]

i thik molles can be great communtiy fish but they can get aggressive and pick on smaller fishies