Mollies: salt or no salt?

dfish23

I have been doing some research on keeping mollies and i have heard two different stories on how to keep them. the first is that mollies need salt to thrive and live a full and healthy life and without it they will be way more susceptible to disease and will not live as long. the other side i have heard is that mollies need no salt at all to live a healthy life and the addition of salt is just pointless.
I myself have kept mollies in fresh water with no salt at all along with my other livebearers twice and have had two different outcomes. The first time i kept them i bought two Dalmatian sail-fin mollies (both female) and both died mysteriously within a couple weeks for no apparent reason. I tried mollies again a few years later and got two black mollies ( males but non-sail-fin )and i had them for 3 months with no problem and only parted with them because of overstocking. both times they were kept in the same manner but i had two different outcomes.
so my questions are these, is salt really necessary for mollies to live a full healthy life? and does the type of molly have an effect on their need for salt? I want to eventually keep some sailfins again but want to know what would be the best conditions to keep them in.

Termato

I am keeping mollies and they seem to be more susceptible to any diseases in comparison to my platys.

You may find this quote from Byron as a response to one of my threads helpful.(It is about mollies)

That's all I got.

jsagrav

For the record, I have been using salt in my 120G and have had good results, bad ich when I first bought the fish, and none since. I have had tons of fry.

dmuddle

Mine are fine without salt. However mine are balloon mollies, so they will probably vary but mine breed and are happy.

dfish23

what type of mollies do you have?

dmuddle

Balloon Mollies or some people call them potbelly mollies. As I said I'm not sure if they vary much with water parameters

dfish23

oops sorry i was asking jsagrav what type. but its interesting to hear that you have had no problem with your balloon mollies. I'm starting to lean more toward salt can be used but not necessary.

4shi

Putting a little salt into their water will do nothing bad for the fishies, it does worth it (except if you keep them with characins like neon tetras, they can't live in salty water). Mollies usually live in a little salty water (but not salt water), but as I know all livebreeders like if the water is salty. Catfish don't really care. If I were you, I used salt, though it's not "necessary".

Tazman

Most mollies in the trade will never see salt in the water, also in the wild not all will venture into Brackish water.

LFS will probably never add salt due to the fact, they tend to run off a central filtration system which can cause problems if adding salt specifically.

Adding salt can also be detrimental if having live plants in the tank.

dmuddle

My balloon mollies are crazy breeders I accidentally got given one female and four males so all they seem to think is that they must mate, she has given birth no problem without tank salt. You could get sand that helps raise salt levels in the water instead of adding salt, if you like the look of sand.