Not having good luck with Mollies!!

[canyon_rayne]

Two weeks ago I bought two Dalmation Mollies from Petsmart. For the first week they were fine and then out of the blue one of them died. I took his poor little fishy corpse back to the store and exchanged him for a new one, a yellow one with orange speckles. When I bought him, the lady told me that Mollies need salt in the tank. I figured that's why my first one had died, so when I added my new Molly to the tank, I added salt according to tht directions. This moring when I woke up, my new Molly was dead as well. Am I doing something wrong or is this just another fish I should just avoid??

 

[White Whale]

Aren't mollies 'brackish water' fish? I've also seen some kept in a marine tank. Maybe the water has to be prepared beforehand?

 

[guppymonkey]

Mollies are one of the more delicate livebearers. Adding salt to the water depends on how the molly was raised. If it was kept in freshwater its whole life then adding salt to the water will stress the mollies out. Mollies need larger tanks than most common livebearers like guppies and swordtails. I wouldn't suggest keeping mollies in a tank smaller than a 20 gallon. The tank should be completely cycled before hand as mollies don't handle cycling well at all.

 

[MAM]

i keep my mollies totally freshwater, and they do fine. but as said, they don't always survive the cycling process. was this tank cycled completely?