Odd Molly Behavior..? (Couple Of Pictures)

I have 3 mollies in a 48ltr tank (to start it off)

A female dalmation molly, a female leopard molly and a male black molly.



Firstly, for the first few days the leopard molly starting swimming at/chasing the dalmation molly every time it settled in one place and i thought maybe this was a bit of competition over the male?

This morning, the dalmation and black were swimming up and down the glass at the front of the tank, and the leopard was sat right at the top of the water by the heater at the back off the tank, facing the glass. this looked really odd. It has since moved and then gone back to this position..
Pics not amazing quality was taken with my phone as camera isnt charged but you get the jist.

I thought i'd ask opinions as i'm just a bit worried about her

When you say your starting your tank off, how long has the tank been running? did you cycle it before you put the fish in?

yeah it was cycled and everything, they've been in there since wednesday and have been fine until this morning

what are your water stats? it could be your water or it could be that the molly is hiding behind the filter for refuge

I was only planning on one water check a week, and on wednesday all was ok, I'll check the water now and will be back in ten to let you know

water looks perfect to me

Jess, can you post the actual test results for us please? We especially need to see what the ammonia reading is.

The behaviour you note is caused by stress. Fish that swim up and down vertically against the tank wall or corner continually are basically stressed and trying to escape their current conditions. Fish that hang listlessly around the filter at the top are also going through stress/shock. If the situation is not corrected soon, they will develop bacterial infections and could die.

They don't appear to be very happy little fishies right now. Let's hope we can help them eh?

Can I also ask how you cycled the tank?

Regards, Athena

I've got 0 for nitrate and ammonia and a ph of 7.8

The temperature in the green on the thermometer

I know i want happy fishies

The only thing that has changed since they got in there is the ph which has lowered slightly from 8

Thanks, Jess. Well, if your ammonia/nitrite are zero that at least rules that problem out. Next thing then is stress from bullying. As you noticed already, there was some bullying behaviour going on when you put them in the tank. You can imagine how stressful it must be firstly for a fish to be netted/bagged up/transported/put into a new tank environment with different water conditions to what they had... so the fish would already be in a stressed state. Add to that a bullying tankmate that continually harrasses and you can imagine the effect it's had. No time for the fish to settle in gently and adjust. There could possibly have been some aggressiveness when the lights went out at night, too.

Either way, they all seem affected. I would leave the lights off today. It can help calm them. Whenever adding new fish it's always a good idea not to have the tank lights on until the next day anyway.

Mollies tend to like brackish water so you might find that adding some aquarium salt will create conditions they prefer.

They are quite sensitive fish generally - keep a check on them for any signs of bacterial infections (e.g. pop eye may develop in highly stressed fish as their immune system starts to deteriorate).

It's quite normal for a male to chase and nudge a female when he's looking to spawn but the female can quickly become exhausted.

Good luck! Athena

Ok, lights are off hope this helps.

I'll have a think about the salt as i was planning on adding other fish (obviously when the mollies have settled), and i'm not sure how this would affect them?

thankyou very much for the advice

jess:) said:

I've got 0 for nitrate and ammonia and a ph of 7.8

The temperature in the green on the thermometer

I know i want happy fishies

The only thing that has changed since they got in there is the ph which has lowered slightly from 8

Click to expand...

You say 0 for NITRATE and Ammonia, did you test for NITRITE? It`s rare for nitrates to be at 0

What test kit do you use, are you using test strips?

API fresh water testing kit- so not strips

nitrate results

jess:) said:

View attachment 62933

nitrate results

Click to expand...

How did you cycle the tank? How long have the fish been in? My impression is that it wasn't cycled fishlessly.

Is that the Nitrate or Ammonia test result (the yellow one)? To have 0 Nitrate is unlikely in a cycled tank

I did a fishless cycle following the advice on the beginners resource bit.

it's deffinatly the nitratre one, the ammonia has a slightly more greenish tint to it (but barely noticable unless held next to nitrate result.)