New Tank--When can I add my Mollies to it?

Question

My tank has been up and going for a week now and the amonia level is still at 0.75. Is it safe to add my mollies, or should I wait? (we have another tank that is overcrowded so I am moving the male mollies to the new tank)

Also, just out of curiosity, what are some other fish that are easy to find (I live in a fairly small city) that I can put with the mollies besides platies, guppies, etc? Something, ya know, more interesting...and colorful;)

Answer 1

Uh, you can put them in, but there going to suffer through ammonia and nitrite spikes. So if your doing a fishless cycle, complete it first, then add your mollies.

Neon tetras are also a good choice. Black neon tetras and possibly a swordtail. They have an interesting tail that is about an inch long to a point.

Answer 2

you're in the middle of the cycle, you should notice a nitrite spike as well
Both of them will go down, and you will have nitrate readings start

Once your ammonia are at 0, your tank is cycled, to help it further, you could do a waterchange, and replace it with water from the other tank

This is a very high ammonia level, and i would rather wait it out, then putting your mollies through a cruel process

other fish besides guppies, platies are characins like

tetras ( neons, black skirt,....)
danios ( zebra danios, giant danios, longfinned danios)
rasbora
the above are all schooling fish and should be kept in a group of no less then 5



Hope that helps
Good luck



EB

Answer 3

The pH and temperature are greater significant to the molly than the salinity. To be honest, I rather have on no account misplaced a molly while netting one out of a freshwater tank and dropping it right into a saltwater tank because of the fact I used my properly water which has a pH of 8.4 and is extremely mineralized (puzzling). Mollies stay in canals in Florida the place the salinity fluctuates with the tides daily going from quite often freshwater to thoroughly marine, and then back. in case you want to reproduction the value at which mollies interior the wild adapt to this, if there are 2 low tides an afternoon, the cycle could be 12 hours. yet I rather have been on the banks of a freshwater creek feeding immediately into the sea and watched huge sailfin mollies swim out of the creek into the sea, gobble some algae, and then swim back into the sparkling water. the huge undertaking with mollies in saltwater is the temperature. Mollies like it warmer than the common reef aquarium.

Answer 4

It usually takes 6 to 8 weeks to cycle a tank properly whether you do with or without fish in the tank. There are many articles on the web on cycling aquariums.

It's very important that your ammonia levels are 0. The bacteria in your filter use oxygen to break the ammonia down into nitrites. Nitrites reduce the oxygen carrying ability of the fishes blood. Nitrites are not as dangerous as ammonia but you'll want to keep these as low as possible. Then another group of bacteria break down nitrites into nitrates. Nitrates are good for plants but not good for fish, fortunately only large quantities of nitrates will make fish ill and regular maintenance usually takes care of these.

For years people cycled their tanks with fish in them by keeping a very close check on these chemicals and preforming regular partial water changes to keep their levels at tolerable levels(Mollies are very susceptible to ammonia poisoning). I don't know how many males you plan to move but I would get my ammonia level down to 0 then move only 2 or 3 fish, wait a couple weeks and move 2 or 3 more keeping a very close eye on the water quality and doing partial water changes if the levels of any of these chemicals even start to rise.

Answer 5

Before you can add mollies, you need to put a few gold fish in the tank for a week to "dirty" up the tank. You could put neons, danions (might be spelled wrong), pretty much any non-aggressive fish.

Answer 6

you can put them in now.