# Do Mollies have to have salt in their water?



## LariM78

Can someone please give me some info on whether mollies definitely need salt in their water? I have a female that appears to be ready to drop fry any time now. I have another small tank that I would like to put her in but there is no salt in that tank. I just don't want to stress her out. I also have 8 fry in a breeding net that are now 4 weeks old. They seem big enough to not be eaten by the other fish ( but I think my tiger barbs will harrass them, so I would like to put them in the smaller tank until they are bigger but once again I am hesitant at the lack of salt in the water. 

I have 5 neon tetras in the small tank so I don't want to put any salt in there.

Some advice please?:fish9:


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## susankat

Adding salt is debateable when it comes to mollies. They don't need it per say, but can live in even a salt water tank. Wholesalers don't add salt to the water that they are bred in. I use to breed them and never kept salt in the tank. Basically its up to you. But if you do start adding salt do it gradually so the fish can get used to it.


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## NeonShark666

I have several Mollies (plus 5 Damsels) in a pure saltwater tank and they do fine. The danger for Mollies in pure freshwater is that they sometimes get Ich. The native habitat Mollies live in is the Gulf Coast and here they get exposed to a lot salt water of different concentrations. Livebearers, like Mollies, don't usually eat their babies if the tank they live in has plenty of hiding places (rocks and plants) and they are given plenty of food. My Mollies like dryed seaweed strips to peck at. They always seem to be hungry! Mollies and Neon Tetras are not good tank mates because Mollies like hard, high ph water and Neons like soft, acid water.


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## Santaaa

I highly recommend salt I tried to keep them in pure freshwater and none of the fry lived and the mother and father both passed away from ich while all my other fish were fine.


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## jrman83

Santaaa said:


> I highly recommend salt I tried to keep them in pure freshwater and none of the fry lived and the mother and father both passed away from ich while all my other fish were fine.


That was your tank, not so much that they were in fw. Ich is not just a Molly problem.


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## snail

I kept them in salt and in brackish water, they seemed to do ok in either but I never bred them.


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## Santaaa

They are prone to ich everyone knows that. People keep them in salt because of that. Some people even use Seachem's Livebearer Salt that is specifically made for live bearing fish. The only fish I have had with ich is black mollies kept with my other fish that were all fine and did not get ich. If you don't want to use salt that is fine if it works for you but for me mollies just don't last and I would think the salt would help as it is used to fight off the parasites. For me I avoid them like the plague. I plan to continue to avoid them. No it is not just a molly problem I agree with that but they are more prone to getting infected with it than other fish are. Salt may not be a bad idea to prevent it though as they can obviously live in saltwater full strength just fine. Can they live in freshwater for a long time? Yes they can. Should they? That is up to you entirely. Would I keep them in freshwater? No I would not I would keep them in brackish water or purchase livebearer salt. Why? I had a bad experience with keeping them in freshwater and I would not do it again. I do not keep them now because of that experience where only they got sick. It is too much hassle. I prefer to have guppies for livebearing fish. They seem much more hardy to me and I just had one drop fry 2 nights ago. Salt yes or no is up to you. I recommend it highly to prevent ich from taking hold but you can keep them in freshwater but you may or may not have problems. I personally had problems with it and none of my other fish got ich. Just the black mollies got it. I think maybe something with their breeding may be giving them weak immune systems. From what I have read online generally people have trouble with the black ones. Kind of like how albino animals sometimes have more medical problems. Maybe something closer to the wild form would be alot more hardy and tolerate living in freshwater without a problem. It really is up to you. Alot of people claim that ich is always present in water but I do not know if that is true but it could explain why it just pops up especially when the temps drop drastically such as when a power outage occurs. The temp drop stresses the fish out and then they get infected. I just think mollies at least the black color morph are alot more prone than most normal aquarium fish.


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## snail

I think mollies are really hardy fish but prone to inbreeding because they breed so easily and they are bred to get all those colors and shapes so some strains may be weak.


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## ironbone

i have my mollies in full sw.they love it as far as romances go huh.i have 1 riginal male that came up from fw-to the sw these woman kick his butt everyday.i kept some of the fry thought they were all females 2 males wow relentless chasing the bigger females.id be scared*w3.mollies pretty happy just dont use battery acid-those are discus fish rofml


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## jrman83

So they will breed in sw too, huh? That's cool. Never really thought about it much.


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## Molly Man

I have a 45 gallon freshwater community aquarium. Among the fish I have are balloon bellied Mollies. I add aquarium salt as a preventative and tonic per the instructions on the package. My fish are happy. The BB mollies are mating and producing many fry. I've learned that after taking care of the basics it's really up to nature.


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