The Puffer Forum

YbeNormal...I do hope you realize I'd never cycle a tank with mollies...just bull sharks.

Michelle - My mollie in with my figure 8 is a dalmation mollie - doing great at 1.005 SG.

Eric

wow thanks for the synopsis puffergeek!

It sounds a little less bothersome than I first thought it might be...but also a little less definitive in what it's trying to say.

Wow, thanks PG!

puffergeek wrote: This got a lot longer than I intended, but I hope it helps a little.

Haha, it helped out a ton! I can't believe that moderator said what he did to me based on that article!That's not the scientific study I was hoping to find.. That mod shouldn't have based his advice on one guy's article that he barely remembered...

Well, I 'spose we'll all do what we did before and research our fish before we buy them. Lol, what a shame

Thanks for digging out an old issue of that magazine to give us some info! That was really nice of you, and I appreciate you tanking the time to paraphrase the article!

Jayhawk- Awesome, those are the conditions I'd want to keep them in (if I do end up taking them). Good to know, thanks!

Oh, and puffergeek, I hope you don't mind but I posted some of your summary of the article on the other forum so the others on there could see what it was about.

So all that hard work went to something!

No problem! Glad to be of help. It wasn't that hard to find the old issue as it was still in the library (in our house that is the codename for the bathroom

Hey Puffer geek , that was exactly what i was trying to say, but i think it came out sounding like many people who are misinformed about figure eights and the like.

When talking about mollies you are actually talking about at least 12(that i can remember) or more different species ranging from completely fresh to brackish.
Pamphorichthys minor (aka Mini-Mollie)
Poecilia butleri ( aka Pacific Mollie)
Poecilia caucana (aka South American Mollie)
Poecilia dominicensis (aka Domingo Mollie)
Poecilia formosa (aka Amazon Mollie)
Poecilia kykesis (aka Lake Peten Mollie)
Poecilia latipinna (aka Sailfin Mollie)
Poecilia maylandi (aka Mayland's Mollie)
Poecilia mexicana (aka Shortfin Mollie)
Poecilia orri (aka Mangrove Mollie)
Poecilia salvatoris(not 100%sure)
Poecilia sphenops (aka common Mollie)
Poecilia velifera (aka Giant Sailfin Mollie)

Other than the fact the that the Black Mollie you mentioned is generally( though with common names things do get confused alot) a hybrid of a sphenops, latipinna. you said it all, thanks for keeping me from looking like a fool.

And,no this is definitely not a definite source,but of late there have been many discussions, debates, and swings in this direction, not just from this article but from the fact (i think) that many hobbyist now keep more freshwater mollies than just the brackish types, and that a good deal of sail fins that are cared for by AlA folks, actually came in freshwater ponds in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, like mine did (were are talking about established populations living 2-3 hundred miles inland). not to say that brackish mollies shouldn't be kept that way (it seems i have it all in my head but am having trouble getting that out so please don't jump down my throat)


aren't mollies amazing ?
sorry if i repeated stuff,

This is my take on mollies/brackish water:

Some commercially bred mollies do well in freshwater, but just as many don't. Spend any time in a general fish forum, and you'll get lots of questions about fin rot, fungus, the shimmies, etc. These almost always occur with fish kept in freshwater, rarely ones kept in brackish.

All commercially bred mollies do well in brackish.

Therefore, the "belt and braces" approach is to keep them in brackish because it may prevent problems, and certainly won't cause any.

Funnily enough, the same argument rumbles along with bumblebee gobies, which are freshwater fish (largely) in the wild, even occuring in "blackwater" streams with zero hardness and high acidity. Nonetheless, there's some evidence that they do better in brackish, even though many people (myself included) have kept them in freshwater.

Cheers,

Neale

Neal sounds good, but arent there a couple species called bumblebee's ?


on a side note, i have seen you around, do you frequent goodeids , endlers r us of vivparous, ? i know i have seen you some were.

Hello Rusty --

There are maybe a dozen species of bumblebee goby, plus or minus, spread across two genera. They can be very difficult to identify. About the only thing you can be 100% sure of is that the species you but WON'T be "Brachygobius" xanthozona, despite that name being widely used in the lterature. I am reliably informed (by a goby scientist, no less) that this species is extremely rare, even in museum collections, let along tropical fish stores.

All the traded species will do fine in slightly brackish water, so it's good advice to give people that they're brackish water fish. But they really aren't, and they will also do well in hard/alkaline water. From personal experience, I have found them somewhat less hardy when kept in soft/acid.

Yep, I do hang about one or two other forums. Not sure we're allowed to say which ones (some forums don't like you plugging other forums).

In the meantime, good night all!

Cheers,

Neale[/i]

Night neale thanks for the info.