I've Lost All My Mollies :(

[cheeky chappie]

tank: juwel rio 180
filtration: juwel compact built-in
cycled: yes
water change: 50% once per week, 'tapsafe' used during each change
water parameters: always good
stock: 2 x pim pictus, 3 x red tailed black shark, 3 x green tiger barb, 4 x white molly (all now deceased)

i've been struggling with the white mollies since i got them tbh, one died 3-4 weeks ago with no visible sign of illness/disease, then another died after what seemed liked whitespot (which i treated tank for and they seemed to recover), the remaining two looked in good health up until yesterday. i was late home last night so didn't look in tank until this morning, immediately noticed my remaining two mollies were hiding at bottom of tank under a piece of wood, on closer inspection they looked really bad, severe whitespot/fungal infection i think. removed them from tank and one seemed to die within mins, the remaining one wasn't long after it.

so i've lost them all.

the other fish appear to be in good/great health and didn't suffer from the whitespot etc that the mollies did. i thought they were supposed to be quite hardy fish so i'm surprised i've lost them all but my remaining stock are all fine. the water parameters always appear to be within spec and i do a 50% water change weekly ... too much?

what do you think caused me to lose them all, anything i've done/not done?

 

[elisew]

I stopped keeping a tropical community because the fish always seemed to be dying off, despite good maintenance and water stats. The guys at my local MA did agree that a lot of the tropicals these days are beginning to get weaker due to a lot of inbreeding.

You also have some fish that are higher on the aggression scale than mollies are so that may have played a factor in the mollies being stressed, more susceptible to illness and then death. Mollies can be quite hardy but they're much better when kept with other fish that are peaceful and low on aggression.

 

[OldMan47]

Between the RTBS and the tiger barbs, you have a very aggressive tank there. If you want peaceful fish like mollies you need another tank for them.

 

[cheeky chappie]

thanks for advice guys, if i'd known that i wouldn't have bought them. my lfs has a 3 colour system on their tanks, can't remember the colours but along lines of green = great for community, amber = okay for community, red = not okay for community. i always stick to green & amber but a good rule of thumb (assuming their scale is always accurate!) is maybe to stick to green only. the thing is i never really seen the mollies getting hassled, granted i don't watch the tank 24/7 but whilst the black sharks and tiger barbs give each other the occassional chase i never really witnessed this to any great extent with the mollies.

thanks again though.