Hi, I’m pretty new to fish keeping and this is my first time keeping mollies. My tank is over 1 month old and had been cycled before adding any fish. The tank now contains 3 mollies and 3 emerald eye rasboras. It’s only the mollies that are getting sick. They start acting lethargic and then begin to fall over onto their side, breathing heavily and then die a day or so later. One molly is currently isolated with these symptoms. Can I save her? What is causing this? Water had been tested yesterday and nothing was alarming. After removing the sick molly I did a water change of about 40%. Mollies remaining in the tank seem to be okay. Also over the last few days the tank has become quite cloudy.
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Help! Molly fish keep dying
- Thread starter issy
- Start date
What is the GH of your water?
Hi I just tested the water there and here are all the measurements. As I lifted the lid as well there was a strange smell.
Can you measure ammonia?
The test I have only measures nitrate and nitrites
I’m not certain it’s an ammonia issue but of the three compounds ammonia is the most toxic. I suggest getting a test kit for ammonia. Others on the forum will have suggestions too.
Basic First Aid For Fish
Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. You really need to find out what the ammonia level is. If there is no ammonia, then there is something bad going on.
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.
Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until the problem is identified. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.
Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.
Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.
Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. You really need to find out what the ammonia level is. If there is no ammonia, then there is something bad going on.
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.
Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until the problem is identified. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.
Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.
Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.
Thank you for the tips! I’ll try that out. I did a water change this morning I’ll do another one tomorrow I also vacuumed the gravel this morning. The glass was wiped a few days ago there was a lot of algae on it. The tank is now completely blacked out and the fish that I had isolated unfortunately passed an hour ago
Can you provide us with ammonia levels? Although, I don't believe it's anything to do with water as your rasboras would also be affected?
I'm thinking it could be something molly specific, since your rasboras are unaffected by it?
(I'm seriously questioning myself lol)
Then again, we still need your water parameters. Your tank may not be cycled or at least be properly cycled, or a factor could have crashed it. Cloudy water usually is called new tank syndrome I believe, and would make sense as yours isn't 2 months old. It's just bacterial bloom, not dangerous but a sign of a new unstable/uncycled tank.
Are you able to get a proper accurate test kit? API Master Test is a super good one. Hopefully you can get one off Amazon with a really swift delivery, or at a store.
Can you provide us with your overall water hardness (in ppm)? Does your tap water have any ammonia/nitrites in it? Do you use an aquarium specific dechlorinator? If I recall correctly, for livebearers carbonate hardness also must be quite high. Or is that malawi cichlids? I might be confusing myself lol.
Though I really am sorry about your loss, I'm still sad about my guppy fry that jumped out along with passing of two of my shrimps
It's never pleasurable to lose your pets, even if it's "just a fish". Best we can do is just keep picking at issues until we find a cause, it's impossible to tell what's wrong with a fish unless it's something we can see with our naked eyes.
I really hope we'll be able to find the issue together, I really do.
I'm thinking it could be something molly specific, since your rasboras are unaffected by it?
(I'm seriously questioning myself lol)
Then again, we still need your water parameters. Your tank may not be cycled or at least be properly cycled, or a factor could have crashed it. Cloudy water usually is called new tank syndrome I believe, and would make sense as yours isn't 2 months old. It's just bacterial bloom, not dangerous but a sign of a new unstable/uncycled tank.
Are you able to get a proper accurate test kit? API Master Test is a super good one. Hopefully you can get one off Amazon with a really swift delivery, or at a store.
Can you provide us with your overall water hardness (in ppm)? Does your tap water have any ammonia/nitrites in it? Do you use an aquarium specific dechlorinator? If I recall correctly, for livebearers carbonate hardness also must be quite high. Or is that malawi cichlids? I might be confusing myself lol.
Though I really am sorry about your loss, I'm still sad about my guppy fry that jumped out along with passing of two of my shrimps
It's never pleasurable to lose your pets, even if it's "just a fish". Best we can do is just keep picking at issues until we find a cause, it's impossible to tell what's wrong with a fish unless it's something we can see with our naked eyes.
I really hope we'll be able to find the issue together, I really do.
Ah ok, I'm not that great with numbers lol.
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