Author Topic: New Mollies (Read 16628 times) 37 replies

LT · « **on:** March 28, 2016, 07:24:31 PM »

Hi, I bought 3 Mollies on Saturday and I'm a bit concerned about one of them. She's shown a few sporadic symptoms and I'm hoping o can get some advise.
* On Saturday I saw her flash a couple of times on the gravel
*last night she was hiding under the drift wood
*this morning she is nice and active but has been intermittently clamping her fins
*ive seen her flash a couple of times this afternoon

I didn't feed them or turn the light on for about 24 hours. Yesterday afternoon I offered them some spirulena flakes. None of them ate anything. Today I offered them some frozen brine shrimp with garlic - again no interest. All of them are nibbling at the drift wood though. I've done a Google search and a couple of sites suggested parasites but visually she looks fine, I can't see any sign of parasites at all.
My water conditions are:
Ph:8 (staying stable)
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate:30ppm apr
I live in a very hard water area and I tested my tap water the other day for nitrates and it was coming out at around 10-20ppm! I've ordered some Seachem matrix. I treat the water with Seachem prime and i test the water using an api test kit.

Is this anything to worry about? And should I be doing anything else?

Littlefish · « **Reply #1 on:** March 28, 2016, 07:48:34 PM »

Hi LT and welcome to the forum.

I don't have any experience with mollies, but there are a lot of very experienced people on this forum, so I'm sure that one of them will be able to help you.

LT · « **Reply #2 on:** March 28, 2016, 08:34:51 PM »

Thanks little fish

Paddyc · « **Reply #3 on:** March 28, 2016, 09:35:26 PM »

Welcome along, LT!

As littlefish says, you will get brilliant advice and support here. Sorry to hear of your woes

but fingers crossed you'll get a handle on your problem. Wish I could help but I'm pretty new to the hobby

fcmf · « **Reply #4 on:** March 28, 2016, 10:36:57 PM »

Welcome, LT

Thanks for providing us with lots of helpful detail to try to get to the bottom of the problem. The fish certainly are suited to your type of water, you seem to have been doing everything right since introducing them, the water quality seems good and dechlorinated and tested with good products, etc.

Just to help us a bit more, as this seems a complicated situation to "diagnose":
* are there any other tank inhabitants, and, if so, what, and what size of tank are the fish in?
* what temperature is the tank at?
* how was the tank cycled - fishlessly with household ammonia and/or were there previously fish in the tank and/or was the filter media mature and from another tank? [Just wondering in the case of the latter two is there any possibility that the tank / filter media has been in contact with fish which haven't been well.]
* is the tank next to a heating source (eg radiator) or a TV/music speaker?

A few interim suggestions:
* try feeding them with standard flake food/pellets - they may feed better on something they recognise as food / are familiar with / had in the LFS before purchase, while brine shrimp and spirulina flakes may be unfamiliar and so may be better further down the line;
* add some more decor to the tank, so that they feel safer and more "at home" - they'll inevitably feel stressed in an unfamiliar environment, and it may just take a bit more time before they settle;
* keep a close eye on the fish and have a couple of broad-spectrum treatments (eg Aquarium Munster Medimor, eSHa 2000, Waterlife Myxazin or Protozin) on standby, in the event of more symptoms, so that you're ready to treat if need be;
* keep a close eye on water quality as you're doing, doing additional water changes if water quality deteriorates.

I have no experience with livebearer fish although I know they can already be pregnant on purchase, so am not familiar with whether they may display slightly odd behaviour in such situations. Hopefully someone else may be able to advise on this.

LT · « **Reply #5 on:** March 28, 2016, 11:36:11 PM »

thank you so much for your reply fcmf, she doesn't look obviously pregnant but then that doesn't mean she isn't. Half the aquarium is planted out but I will add more to give them more hiding places. The aquarium is 120litre and the only other fish I have are 3 juvenile guppies (born in the tank) and snails which I bought at the same time: one horned nerite, one tiger nerite snail and 2 Burmese horned snails. The tank was cycled initially with substrate from a friends aquarium but that was years ago. I had a major tank loss since then because of a power cut while I was away.
I'll also double check with the shop and see what they fed them. The tank is situated on the other side of the room to the tv and radiator. The temperature is 79f.

Littlefish · « **Reply #6 on:** March 29, 2016, 10:53:02 AM »

The only livebearers I have experience with are my variatus platies. When one of the females got pregnant I didn't even notice. It was only when I moved to adults to a larger tanks and started cleaning out the smaller tank that I found the babies under a moss ball.

Sue · « **Reply #7 on:** March 29, 2016, 11:53:46 AM »

Fish are usually pretty stressed out when we get them. They've been through a lot since they left the breeder, with transport, holding tanks at the wholesaler, shop tanks, people staring at them, other fish being caught and the whole tank being chased with a net in the process, several changes of water types etc. Some fish take longer to settle in than others.

Causes of flashing range from parasites as you have read, to ammonia in the water - but you've tested yours and it's coming up zero. Keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrite levels for a few days as you have added quite a lot of fish in one go compared to what were already there, and there is the possibility of a mini-spike.
Keep watching the fish though. It can take a few days for whitespot, for example, to grow big enough for us to see.
Your nitrate isn't that bad - some regions have it almost at the maximum legal limit of 50ppm in their tap water. If your tap level is 20, try to keep the tank level from going above 40ppm (that is, tap + 20) when measured just before a water change.

If a female livebearer has been in the same tank as a male during the last 6 months, she will be at some stage of pregnancy. I've had endlers, and when the females were about to give birth they got quite grumpy, chasing off any fish that came near; they went off their food a bit; and they 'sat' quietly near the bottom of the tank in a corner. When they are about to give birth the abdomen will look almost square when looking at the fish from the side.

LT · « **Reply #8 on:** April 13, 2016, 08:18:02 PM »

Thank you everyone for their input. Sorry haven't replied straight away, had a loss in the family. The fish I was concerned about has given birth to some fry, they are 8 days old now. I've put them in a nursery net as an emergency (the adults were eating them!) although all the fish seem happy and settled, all the Mollies will become stressed when I perform maintenance on the tank, some will flash on objects and all will gasp at the surface but they all seem fine the next day. Yesterday I ran the air pump prior to doing a 10litre water change and used the exact doses of Seachem prime. I continued to run the air pump overnight. This did seem to help relieve the symptoms a bit but one Mollie was hanging around on top of the filter looking very stressed indeed

she seems fine this evening. Unfortunately my nitrates have increased quite a bit, should I do another water change today? Or do them every other day to keep stress to a minimum?

Sue · « **Reply #9 on:** April 13, 2016, 09:10:46 PM »

Sorry to hear about your family loss. It is always a stressful time.

Some fish are sensitive to nitrates, though I've not read about mollies being in that group.

However, we should try to stop nitrate ever getting higher than 20 above the level in our tap water. You mentioned in your first post that your tap water nitrate is 10 to 20, so you need to keep your nitrate from going higher than 40.

There are a few possible reasons for nitrate over the tap + 20 level:
Too many fish in the tank - you can use the Community Creator on this site to check that out.
Overfeeding, as uneaten fishfood decomposes to ammonia which is turned into nitrate by the filter bacteria.
Not enough water changes.
Water changes not big enough.

Do you have live plants in the tank, and if so would you call it lightly, moderately or heavily planted?
If it is lightly or non-planted, you should really be doing more than 10 litre water changes. That's only 8%. Even with 3 or 4 changes a week, it is still not enough. 3 x 8% water changes a week does not add up to 24% a week as each water change removes some of the water you added last time.
Have you ever tried doing a bigger water change than 10 litres, and if so how did the fish behave?
Is there any difference in pH between freshly run tap water and the tank?

Do you know which you have, chlorine or chloramine in your tap water? If you have chlorine, one thing you could try to rule out the Prime being the culprit - run your 10 litres of new water the day before a water change and don't add the Prime. Chlorine will gas off overnight. Or let it stand 48 hours to be even safer.
Prime contains several other additives besides the ones needed to remover chlorine/chloramine and metals, and Seachem don't say what they are. There is a slight chance that your mollies could be sensitive to something in Prime.

And most fish will eat fry, even their own. It is why fish give birth to so many fry, or lay so many eggs.

LT · « **Reply #10 on:** April 17, 2016, 10:12:02 PM »

I would say the tank is lightly planted, yes I used to do 25litre water changes apr but the fish didn't seem to cope with it, they seemed so stressed afterward which is why I switched to fewer/smaller changes, exactly dosed the prime with a 1ml syringe and ran air pumps before and after the change - but now my nitrates are high. The tanks ph is 8.2 but the taps ph is about 7.3. I'm not sure if my tap water contains Chloramine, I had a search online and could find no information on my tap water.

My male Mollie now appears to have Ich - he's white so it's hard to tell so I did a 20litre water change yesterday, started to add aquarium salt and raise the temperature of the tank slowly, I'm also adding extra aeration but the shop that I bought them from have said its more likely 'Molly spot' as Ich would have caused death by now. They said to treat with melafix? I've stopped raising the temperature for now (currently at 79f) I'm going to try adding a picture of him - I didn't get a great pic as he's still quite active. He has white raised spots on his body and white streaks on his dorsal fin.

LT · « **Reply #11 on:** April 17, 2016, 10:19:08 PM »

It won't let me upload the pics

Fiona · « **Reply #12 on:** April 17, 2016, 10:47:46 PM »

Can I ask if you're dosing the tank with the water conditioner or the water before you add it to the tank?

Another thing that springs to mind is that if you've got high nitrates, there have been high nitrite levels at some point. Have you been testing the water daily for ammonia and nitrite? What are the readings today?

LT · « **Reply #13 on:** April 17, 2016, 10:52:29 PM »

I treat the water before I put it in the tank. My nitrates are between 40-80ppm. I don't test daily but my nitrites and ammonia are always 0.

LT · « **Reply #14 on:** April 17, 2016, 11:02:12 PM »

Could the ph difference be stressing them? I'm beginning to doubt what the shop have said - it looks like he is starting to lose some of his dorsal fin :-/

fcmf · « **Reply #15 on:** April 17, 2016, 11:45:01 PM »

With nitrates at that level, that is going to cause far more stress to the fish than water changes, as well as increase the likelihood of illness (eg finrot or any number of conditions). I really would encourage you to do larger, more frequent water changes to get the nitrates down as Sue described.

LT · « **Reply #16 on:** April 17, 2016, 11:57:57 PM »

I've started doing 20litre water changes daily but what about my sick fish? What can I do for him?

fcmf · « **Reply #17 on:** April 18, 2016, 08:17:13 AM »

Often, the best thing that you can do for a sick fish is to keep the nitrates low (and ensure no ammonia or nitrites) by doing frequent, regular water changes, and the issue can resolve itself.

I think we may need to see a pic before we can advise on whether any further treatment is required, and, if so, what - I'd offer to upload it on your behalf if you PM or e-mail it to me but I'm not going to be able to upload it until after 6pm this evening and so it might be best to send it to someone else if they offer.

LT · « **Reply #18 on:** April 18, 2016, 08:57:16 AM »

Hi fcmc can I email you a picture please? Just tried to PM but I couldn't see an option to attach a picture. I'm at a funeral all day today so won't be able to do anything until later anyway

I've put more salt in the aquarium today (0.1% in total so far) and iv increased the temperature again incase it's Ich. I've just put it up by a couple of degrees to 82 and later I was going to put it up to 84f do a 20litre water change and replace the salt that I had removed with the water.

LT · « **Reply #19 on:** April 18, 2016, 09:09:30 AM »

The shop where I bought them from has just told me to "Lower the temperature to what it was before and treat with Melafix and Protozin" they haven't asked to see a picture of the fish? What should I do?

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Author Topic: New Mollies (Read 16628 times) 37 replies

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