Mollies For Algae Control?

[Pazzoman]

Hey Everyone,

Ive been hearing in the store I work at as well as online that freshwater mollies are great for saltwater to clear algae. Has anyone tried? Also I don't have algae on the rocks just on the back glass that I can't reach for the most part. Also if so does it depend on the kind of molly?

Thanks

Unless their is another fish or type of snail that would eat the algae...I have a 150 gallon high tank if that helps. Turbo snails are hit or miss with my tank

 

[Clink51]

Mollies are brackish from my understanding. it would take some time but they can be adapted.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

tried this a few times by adding 10 or so mollies to my refugium. Yes they eat everything including diatoms, and trim down hair algae, but there are problems.
The black ones are weak, the white ones adapt better.


1. The last time I tried this, I had only 1 male and 9 females, but the male will kill everyone off if they are not well fed, and forcing them to forage on low grade algae makes them thin and weak. Even if I had just 10 females, the biggest one then kills the others off. If you just want one, then OK.
2. To prevent them from wasting away, they need to be fed fish food, but I found that I had to feed them so much food, that the nutrients added, would've grown more algae then they ate.
My solution is to just go catch a killifish from Jones Beach, the north side where the kids play. There are millions of killifish swimming around, easy to catch with a 6" net. They eat less food than mollies and eat almost anything.

 

[rookie07]

Interesting!

But why remove algae from the fuge?!?! Algae is good for so many reasons.

 

[Pazzoman]

Interesting on the killifish, yeah the black mollies die quickly and easily at the Petsmart I work at....anymore info on the killifish like a pic of what they look like will be great! Thanks

 

[piranhapat]

I was going to try mollis in my frag tank. Had a lot of hair algae on disk. I decided to turbo snails and boy they did excellent job. Very happy go with snails ...

 

[MikeC]

I was going to try mollis in my frag tank. Had a lot of hair algae on disk. I decided to turbo snails and boy they did excellent job. Very happy go with snails ...

I like my turbo snails as far as the work they do but hate them when they knock coral over every night lol

 

[homegrowncichlid]

The killifish look like white female mollies with silver speckling as adults, but little ones in the bay are grayish. They are just as aggressive as mollies in that I started with a few, but now only one. They are hardy. When I go catch a few dozen little ones this summer, I'm probably going to dump the one I have now, otherwise it'll kill them off.