Do you have to have salt for mollies

[Angelfish11788]

buddy has got a 60 cube tank and picked up a few mollies, a dalmation and others, i know they like salt but can they live without it, or can all fish live with it. the stock so far is a rummy noses, a few swordtails, platties and a Rubberlip. I think his main fish will be some kind of dwarf cichlid pair

oh he has a bunch of snails

[Goes to 11!]

Do you have to have salt for mollies

No, Salt is not required at all for any FW fish..

[Angelfish11788]

No, Salt is not required at all for any FW fish..

thats what I thought,then why do so many molly caresheets say salt for adults

[Goes to 11!]

Asking the people who wrote them is the most effective & accurate way to know the rationale behind those care sheets.

Also: Googling the range of habitats/water conditions mollys exist in will help you to understand both the answer and why I phrased it the way I did.

[Lady Hobbs]

I would see no harm in it if nothing was in the tank but for the molly's but I see no reason to subject fish that don't like salt for the sake of one that may. The molly's we get are all farm raised anyway.

[fishmommie]

MY Indy LFS has mollies in his live coral tank. I asked him about it and he said those particular mollies were raised in saltwater.
All others that he sells are strictly fresh water.
Thought that was interesting.

[steeler1]

I'm going to try and split the difference here. Going back and reading my Baensch Aquarium Atlas (a must have book) it would seem that Poecila Sphenops (most of the black mollies and other hybreds you see in the trade) do not need salt in their tanks but the author suggests "adding a little salt".

Poecilla Velfera ( Mexican sailfin or green sailfin) on the other hand needs salt in their water. These are the ones that can be acclimated to keep in Marine tanks. They will also and have been crossbred with P. Sphenops.

So as was pointed out it depends on where they were collected and as Hobbs said most of these fish are produced in farms.

Hard water in both cases is what you realy need to achieve according to the atlas.

[Aeonflame]

You can acclimate mollies to brackish and full marine and back. Most of them were bred and always kept in fw however, so salt is not needed.

[Angelfish11788]

You can acclimate mollies to brackish and full marine and back. Most of them were bred and always kept in fw however, so salt is not needed.

no sailfins so i told him he is good, he said they were doing well. Guess i will leave it at that, they are cool little fish