Attack of the Molly!? Molly attacking my filefish

Yellow17165161 · Sep 29, 2020

Hi,

So I have a 32.5 gallon tank, it’s been running for a couple months now, and I decided to add some more fish. I had a clowfish, and then added a black Molly because I was interested in converting a simple freshwater fish to saltwater. It was successful and the Molly is very very active.

Now today, about a week since I added the Molly, I added in a Pygmy filefish (which was pre quarantined). My Molly has been chasing and attacking the filefish. It grabs on to the filefishes bottom fins, almost like the Molly thinks it’s seaweed or something. It has been chasing it around as well. I left the tank to head off to work, and have a family member occasionally taking a look to see if we should remove the Molly.

So far I’ve been told it’s occasionally chasing the filefish but leaves it alone then after another while chases again.

Are Mollies aggressive? He’s not touching the other fish I added, just the filefish.

Is it just trying to establish a heirarchy? Anyway to keep the Molly and filefish together?

xxkenny90xx · Sep 29, 2020

I have my doubts that a Molly can do much damage other than stressing the file fish. Whenever I have aggression towards a new fish the aggressor gets a ~4 day timeout in my sump. This has worked for me everytime

Yellow17165161 · Oct 2, 2020

Thanks! I wish I had a sump, it’s an AIO system. They seemed to be fine for the past couple days, but this morning I noticed the Molly chasing the filefish again when the lights were turned on. I can probably still return the Molly, but I’m not sure how converting it back to freshwater would be for the fish