Sailfin Mollies

stephstar

stephstar

Kootenay Girl
Aug 12, 2008
149
0
0
Canada
www.darkspeedslidepucks.com
I have had three sailfin mollies now, and three have died. UUUGGGG!
The rest of my mollies are all good, swimming around like crazy playing in the current and air bubbles, they are so fun!
I was wondering if the sailfins like warmer water? Brackish water? What is the difference between a regular mollie and a Sailfin?
My books say nothing about a difference between them, anyone can shed some light for me?
 
Where did you get the sailfins? Its quite possible they were used to brackish or salt water. Ive read an article where mollies can actually be acclimated to full salt before and actually one of my lfs sells them completely kept in salt water. Sorry for your loss as sailfins are very nice fish. My wife still is mad at me for the time I passed on a pair of chocolate colored sailfins. She later convinced me to go get them and when I went back they were gone and Ive never seen that coloration again.
 
no, I got them at my local pet store, which only keeps freshwater fish.
Yes, i am bummed, because they are so pretty. I do not want to get anymore until I know what is up with them. So other than being able to adapted to both brackish and freshwater, do sailfins need something different from regular mollies?
 
No the care for sailfins would be the same as regular mollies, I dont know what other tank mates you have besides mollies. But mollies do well with a little aquarium salt added to their water in my opinion, I use about 1 teaspoon per 5g with my wifes mollies.
 
more info needed

how long did you have the sailfins?
did they show any symptoms of illness before or after death?
what size is the tank?
how many and what kinds of fish are in the tank?
any other fish die recently?
did you add any new fish recently?
what are the readings for ammonia/nitrite/nitrate when you test the water?
how often do you do water changes and how much each time?
 
OK, thanks.
I do use some salt, not as much as 1 teaspoon per 5 gallons though. I will slowly add that amount over the next week.
Thanks blissskr for your help. Wish me luck!

OKay editing this to answer wata's questions:
I had the first two for 1 week
I had the third one for about a week and 1/2
Yes, they showed signs of being too cold, all three hung out at the heater, none of the rest of my fish do that.
I have a 40 gallon tank
I have, now, 4 mollies, 1 guppy, and one fire-tail (I do not know if it is the real name, the store person did not know what it is called either, it was in the same tank as the guppy when I bought it)
no other fish have died recently, the rest look well and they are very playful.
my readings for nitrite were bad for about 3 days approx. .8ppm but I rectified that with this product name "cycle" Now all my readings are 0
I just did a water change (about 30%) on Saturday. I have had my tank for about 2 months now.
 
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I use 1 tablespoon per gallon of Instant Ocean marine salt in my mollie tank. Specific gravity of 1.003 is what I keep it at.

Mollies like high TDS (total disolved solids)... meaning high GH and high KH... if your water is very hard out of the tap you can use just aquarium salt to achieve this (although I would still use the marine salt). If your water is soft out of the tap marine salt is a better choice since it adds buffers and trace elements.

I keep dalmation mollies and a very happy black sailfin male. He keeps the 9 females pregnant and breeding all the time. 40~60 babies born every 2~4 weeks. The grow up to be tasty treats for the Cichlid tank.
 
There deaths could have possible been due to the nitrites or ammonia if any was also present. I would keep up on the testing on your tank to make sure you keep params in check, you should have at least some nitrates registering, did you test for them?
 
mollies are one of the few fish that will readily adapt to pretty much any type of water. they will do just as well in FW as they will in BW or SW, when acclimated properly. there is really no need to add salt to the tank, especially if you have other fish in the tank that are strictly FW.

besides, aquarium salt does nothing in terms of creating a brackish environment.

it really doesnt do anything except cost money...
 
However, they won't, IME, adapt to soft water. The purer sailfins - mostly P. latipinna stock, or even P. velifera, moreso than the shorter finned varieties with a greater proportion of P. sphenops genes. This may be why your other mollies are OK. What is your GH?
 
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