How much salt can the typical aquarium plant tolerate? I heard Java
Ferns can handle the salt better than most. I want to keep Mollies and
plants too.

Mollies do fine without any added salt.
They breed like.....well........Mollies.


Well, uh, except the ones that do better with salt. There were recent
articles in FAMA and TFH about this.

It was the December 2002 TFH, p 96. The bottom line is sailfin
mollies have gill structures similar to marine fish - they have
osmoregulatory mechanisms - these do indeed need salt to stay healthy
although calcium (ie, VERY hard water or rift salts) will also
work. Absent sodium or calcium ios, then become thin, humpbacked
and will die. The author got wild fish from our own BG Granier
and prompty lost them one by one as they wasted away before
he figured this out.

The articles references work by a Dr. Joel Trexler, an ecologist
at Florida International University in Miami who has done quite
a bit of work on this species.

It's quite a good article and no dount I'm not doing it justice ehre.

To answer the original question: yeah, java moss, java ferm, and
some crypts do fine in nearly half strentgh seawater: cilata,
pontiderifolia, and I think all the long grassy ones.

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