Tropical Fish Forums

[CCS]

Hey, one quick question before I write this. How long can a FW fish last in SW?

I thought up an idea and was wondering if it would work. Could you feed modified mollies to SW carnivores?

You see, mollies and other FW feeders lack the fatty acids that SW creatures need. Omega 3 is the most common of those fatty acids.

You could breed the mollies in a small container. You could also feed them macroalgae for extra nutrition.

Meanwhile, you would have a small storage container of ground up Omega 3 vitamins.

Once you were ready to feed the SW carnivore(s), you could inject the feeder moll(y,ies) with a paste made from the ground up vitamins and salt water. Then you would serve and enjoy.

I know this sounds harsh, but it would be great for stimulating your SW fish's hunting instincts and also give them a very nutritous meal. It would also save money. Since the molly would go into the tank immediately after injection, it would suffer for only a brief few seconds.
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I would like to acknowledge that all of the info I give is purely based on research.

[sirreal63]

Something like this? lol You'll notice the female is prego in the first pic. I still keep black mollies in my reef. Acclimate them slowly and they handle full sw easily.



these are a pair of black mollies, they breed better in full SW than fresh.

Here is one of my S. Tapetum snacking on a Molly it snared itself.

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Out on the road today...I saw a DeadHead sticker on a Cadillac...
Jack
110 Gallon DSA Pentagon

[CCS]

WTF? Are there really wild mollies in wild reefs? Would they get shocked if they weren't aclimated?
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I would like to acknowledge that all of the info I give is purely based on research.

[blake]

Mollies are actually a brackish fish but most people put them in freshwater so it would be just as easy if not easier to make the mollies go in salt water rather than fresh
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people who don't love fish are crazy

[sirreal63]

Mollies are a brackish fish and do quite well in a reef environment. I have noticed they breed better in salt than fresh. I keep them as a supply of young fresh food for the other fish. One thing though, they have no instincts about a reef environment and my anemone catches them easily as they don't know to stay away.
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Out on the road today...I saw a DeadHead sticker on a Cadillac...
Jack
110 Gallon DSA Pentagon

[Michael L.]

HAHA... Injecting them. Perhaps it would be easier, and you would run less of a risk of sticking yourself with a needle if you fed the mollies modified food. You could have vitamins that you put in their food say, a few hours before you fed them to the SW fish, and they would be absolutely full of nutrients.

I would also consider nutrient enriched water, and seeing if you could get any results out of it. I don't know what you would want to put in it, but you could get all kinds of different nutrients in their bodies via the gills if it was in the waterway.

I really wouldn't inject them. They wouldn't live very long, and it would be pretty harsh. You may be okay with it, morally, so you should go ahead and try it.
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[dale]

CCS,
You're assuming the molly will be caught and consumed immediately, probably not the case unless you keep a starved predator in a small tank. So the project would really just be an exercise in cruelty wouldn't it?

But...

The bigger question I have is why you would want to stimulate a fishes hunting instinct? Are you planning to re release it into the wild like a wildlife rescue refuge and so want it to be able to fend for itself back on the reef? Otherwise, you would only be stimulating that instict for your own benefit.
Better to stick to bull fighting. At least that way you get to say OLE'.
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Intelligence is not having all the answers; it's knowing how to think!