Lower limit of salt tolerance for Doradids?

[knifegill]

What is the highest concentration of salt you would ever routinely keep a Raphael catfish in? I got a free Molly and have nowhere else to put him...

[Bas Pels]

Many mollies can have pure sweet water. However high fin varieties don't thrive in purely sweet water

Still, I would not expose my valuable fish to a wrong kind of wate,r just because I happen to put another fish in their tanks

But, answering your querie, my Platydoras armatulus did survive 2 g/l kitchensalt, but after the itch or whatever was cured, I change water with putre sweet water, so the concentration will slowly drop

[MatsP]

If you have reasonably hard water, the mollies will be fine. If you have really soft water, then adding salt would be necessary for the molly, and not at all good for the Doradid - they live in soft freshwater. Some forms of mollies live in estuaries where the water is slightly brackish - hard water is "close enough", but soft water isn't.

If you have soft water, adding some minerals suitable for "fixing" RO water would perhaps be a better choice than adding salt.

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Mats

[fischkringli]

If you want to put the Mollie in freshwater be carefull. Mollys are eurhalin, that means they tolerate much salt suddenly, but they dont like freshwater suddenly. They could get an osmotic dhock. They loose all their fins . So for putting it in another tank use 1hour or more.

[knifegill]

So the Raphael would be more tolerant of hardness that salt, and that's what the Molly would be happy with anyway? I have crushed shell gravel. I could add a few small shells at a time over the course of a few weeks. Would that do it?

[MatsP]

If you have crushed shell as gravel already, then it should be fine. Do take some time to acclimatise the new fish to the new water tho'.

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Mats

[Richard B]

So the Raphael would be more tolerant of hardness that salt, and that's what the Molly would be happy with anyway? I have crushed shell gravel. I could add a few small shells at a time over the course of a few weeks. Would that do it?

The Raph would probably prefer a sand substrate rather than the "alien" crushed shell (in terms of habits & physical interaction)