New Mollies

Hi Joker Fish and welcome to the forum,

I dont think there is "normal" behaviour for a fish in the bag - not with any species. They have gone through quite a bad day at this point and some take it more in their stride than others do. Mollies are livebearers (give birth to live young, not lay eggs) and it has been known for a female to give birth in the bag from the stress. One of my mollies gave birth 36 hours after purchase. So dont be surprised if you suddenly see wee fry in your tank! Unless you have two males of course. Which, by the way, were you told that mollies are best kept in a ratio of at least two (preferably more) females per male? This is because males spend most of their time chasing females. If there is only one female in the tank then it is quite possible she could be hounded to death whereas if the male has a choice, it gives one female a break whilst he chases the other. Hence why I prefer to say at least 3 females per male.

May I ask, do you know about cycling the filter? Because if you dont, then you are now technically doing whats known as a "fish-in" cycle. Sue has done a very helpful post on how to do this and she will also answer any questions you may have if you get in a pickle or dont understand whats happening.

Feel free to ask any questions - there are plenty of people on here to help you out 

Fish tanks should smell of freshly dug earth. Anything else is a bit suspect.


I know Anna will disagree, but most people consider liquid reagent tests to be more accurate. Do your strips test for ammonia? That is one of the most important, so if they don't you'll need a separate tester for that.
Also, what do they define as 'safe'? Any reading for ammonia and nitrite other than zero is not safe. Even the 0.25 for ammonia and nitrite recommended as the max for fish-in cycling is not safe; it is just less damaging than higher levels.

You could ask the shop to test your water, but make sure they give you the numbers not just a word like 'OK'

I have the API liquid test kit. Just a heads up with the ammonia test - the liquid in the tube can look a bit greener than it really is under energy saving bulbs. If you still have any old fashioned bulbs left, look at it under that.
And the nitrate tester - you really do have to shake bottle 2 like it says. With it being new, give it a good bang on something hard before you start (not so hard you split the bottle  ). One of the reagents settles on the bottom. The shaking is to mix it back in, and the banging is to break up any lumps that form when it's stood a while.


Let us know what the readings are, especially ammonia and nitrite. If they are above zero, you'll need to do a water change to get it/them down.

Hard water tends to be high ph (7.5+, mines 7.6) and well buffered - i.e. stable

If hard water tends to be high pH, does that mean a high pH should be hard water?

My notoriously "soft" (cornwall) tap water is over 8. It is not well buffered because it drops to 6.8 - 7.0 in less than 24 hours, leaving me to believe its softer than a baby's bum. I have to leave buckets of water stand overnight before I can use it in my tanks (which are about 7.0).

Are we Cornish weirder than Worzel?

Quote from: ColinB on January 07, 2013, 08:01:53 AM

Hard water tends to be high ph (7.5+, mines 7.6) and well buffered - i.e. stable

If hard water tends to be high pH, does that mean a high pH should be hard water?

My notoriously "soft" (cornwall) tap water is over 8. It is not well buffered because it drops to 6.8 - 7.0 in less than 24 hours, leaving me to believe its softer than a baby's bum. I have to leave buckets of water stand overnight before I can use it in my tanks (which are about 7.0).

Are we Cornish weirder than Worzel?

The high pH = high hardness thing is just a general guideline, and there are definitely exceptions to it.

pH is an upside down measure of how many hydrogen ions [H⁺] there are in the water (upside down meaning the lower the number the more H⁺ and vice versa)
GH is a measure of how much calcium and magnesium there are in the water
KH is a measure of how much the water resists changes in pH

Having a lot of calcium and magnesium in the water tends to lower the amount of H⁺. So high GH = lots of calcium, resulting in less H⁺ and high pH.

With your soft water, it just means you don't have much calcium and magnesium in your water. But those are not the only things in there, they are just what makes water 'hard'. There will be other things in there too that aren't measured and these other things can also reduce the H⁺ in the water.

Water that is soft and alkaline like yours has very little calcium and magnesium(ie low GH) but it does have something else in the water that makes the pH high.




My water has
pH 7.4 fresh, 7.6 standing
GH 9 with the API test kit, 6 on my water supplier's website
KH 3 with API test kit



Hmmmm, must go test my GH. I just looked at the water company's site after typing that and they now say 4.76^o german hardness, the unit the API tester uses. And they say that is at the higher end of moderately soft.



Edit.
6 drops for the colour change with the GH tester - GH = 6
3 drops for the colour change with the KH tester - KH = 3

It could be the effect of ammonia - it irritates the fish's skin. The big one might be more susceptible. Cure - keep the ammonia level as low as possible.
It could be the early stages of a disease called ich or whitespot. Keep an eye on it, check to see if it looks as though it's been sprinkled with salt. If these spots do appear, this is an easily curable disease, come back and ask.
Or it could be something called the shimmies, though that is usually the fish sort of swimming on the spot. This is an affliction of mollies kept in soft water. other than increasing the hardness, I don't know if it is curable.