12 fish Brackish Water or freshwater that is the question

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Fourty_6410n3

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Feb 7, 2009
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So I have 12 fish in 40 gallons of freshwater.. I was told by my local fish shop that adding salt would benefit my fish but my Molly's would adapt well to it.

I am somewhat confused about the salt because there’s a point where it would be considered Brackish. And would running my tank as a brackish tank would my current freshwater fish adapt to it?


3 mollies (1.5" Black w/ colored Head and Fins, red and yellow)
3, 2” Gourami’s (1 white/blue dots, 1 Cream/white Blue dotted fins, 1 Red/Orange)



Pictus Catfish (3" Silver Long whiskers loves meat..)
Upside Down catfish
2 Ghost catfish

1 hypostomus Pleco

1 Medium sized Bala Shark

I have 2 Live plants the rest fake. Would the salt kill my plants?
 

Rbishop

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Dec 30, 2005
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Welcome to AC!

Make a new thread in the Freshwater Forums regarding your questions and you will get many more responses.
 

Sploke

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Oct 20, 2005
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Welcome to AC. Mollies are pretty adaptable fish. In the wild, they can be captured in fresh and brackish conditions, bordering on marine. They seem to spend most of their time in hard, alkaline waters. Adding salt is one way to attempt to replicate this, although it doesn't add all the minerals necessary. If you have extremely soft water, you'd be better off using a buffer product similar to that used for rift lake cichlids to increase hardness. However, most store bought mollies have been captive-bred for so many generations that they will adapt to just about any conditions and be perfectly healthy, so chances are you don't need to change anything.
 
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