Dalmation Mollies and Cories together?

[dmiller038]

Hello everybody! I have a 29-gallon aquarium that is almost finished cycling (nitrates starting to appear) so my GF and I took a trip to Petsmart to try and decide what fish we wanted to get.

Turns out she likes the dalmation mollies, and I've heard nothing but good things about cory cats. The problem is that I've read that dalmation mollies like a little salt in their water, and cories don't do so hot with salt.

Is there any way we can compromise and put them together in an aquarium? Can we not use any salt and have the mollies do okay? Or if we were to supplement with a little salt, would the cories do okay?

Apologies if this has already been asked, this place seems to have loads of info.

 

[rill2004]

we have had both in our tanks for some time now and have no problems thus far. Then again, its only been 5-6 months.

 

[dmiller038]

Cool! Are you running with any salt?

 

[rill2004]

no.no salt. he/she is in our 75 gallon community tank. We dont add salt.

 

[ctbestfisherman]

Mollies don't require salt despite what what many people read. Unless they come from a brackish water environment or are born in one they don't require salt. I don't know of any LFS that adds salt to molly tanks. Cories and mollies are also fine together.

 

[acguppy]

Mollies don't need salt, they just prefer it. Cories and mollies can defnitley live together.

 

[jpappy789]

AQ salt is nothing but NaCl and will not recreate a brackish environment that some mollie inhabit. If anything you need Marine salt like Instant ocean.

Mollies tend to prefer water high in TDS (total dissolved solids) which for all pratical purposes refers to harder water.

 

[dmiller038]

AQ salt is nothing but NaCl and will not recreate a brackish environment that some mollie inhabit. If anything you need Marine salt like Instant ocean.

Mollies tend to prefer water high in TDS (total dissolved solids) which for all pratical purposes refers to harder water.

So it's not the salt that mollies are preferring, but dissolved solids? Okay, no offense intended, but how does help to answer my original question? Specifically, how does this relate to the cories? I'm guessing they don't prefer any dissolved solids...

And assuming that mollies prefer harder water, how do you go about making your water harder? I've got maybe 75 ppm General Hardness on my test strips.

 

[pinkertd]

Mollies and cories will be fine together. Mollies will be healthier and live longer in hard water. In soft water they are much more prone to health issues. Cories are more versatile in their water requirements and their health isn't affected negatively by either soft or hard water.

 

[jpappy789]

So it's not the salt that mollies are preferring, but dissolved solids? Okay, no offense intended, but how does help to answer my original question? Specifically, how does this relate to the cories? I'm guessing they don't prefer any dissolved solids...

And assuming that mollies prefer harder water, how do you go about making your water harder? I've got maybe 75 ppm General Hardness on my test strips.

I was saying you shouldn't use ANY salt.

I've had cories live just fine in very hard water granted they come from areas low in dissolved solids. As long as they are captive bred (most are) you should be fine mixing the two...

Assuming your test stips are correct (most people use liquid tests for accuracy) you come out to about 4 dGH which is pretty soft. You could try using crushed coral in the filtration or limestone based rock as decor.