Is my molly sick?

[Echo123]

I have had this molly for about a year now and recently I’ve noticed she hasn’t been swimming around. She is just laying at the bottom of the tank. She seems like at some points she trying to swim but can’t. It’s like she’s moving her fins around but isn’t moving anywhere. Her tank was in need of being cleaned for awhile but we just decided to replace the tank altogether. We put 1/3 of the old water in the new tank to reduce the stress on her. We also put in some stress reducer in case this was the problem. But she’s still laying at the bottom of the tank. I can see she’s breathing and looking around but does anyone know what’s wrong with her?

 

[Echo123]

My molly died a couple of days ago. Still don’t know what happened. She did live a long life. It may have been old age but I can’t be sure.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Mollies can live for 5 or 6 years.

The most common cause of fish deaths in aquariums is poor water quality caused by too much food and insufficient filtration. After that diseases and parasites and bullying.

Mollies need hard water with lots of minerals in. If the pH is less than 7.0 and the general hardness (GH) is less than 250ppm, that would be a contributing factor.

 

[Byron]

I agree with Colin. And I did not see your initial post at the time or I would likely have asked for more data so members could assess the issue. But I may be able to offer some advice in retrospect for the future.

Was the molly problem after the new tank? If yes, this may have been ammonia. Mollies are very highly sensitive to ammonia and frankly cannot tolerate any. If the water was not hard enough as Colin noted, it would have severely stressed the fish over time, and this makes future issues even more problematical.

Before acquiring any new mollies, check your water parameters, meaning GH (general or total hardness) and pH of the source water.