Sick Fish Please Help

[Cmerr85]

I have several non aggressive fish in my 36gallon tank, the majority of them being Molly's. I have had 2 fish die on my since I got the aquarium both molly's... the latest was tonight. I have had a dalmation die on me, and then tonight a silver molly. the Dalmation was a male, he started swimming very eradically, a loss of control it seemed, we removed him from the aquarium and put him in a bowl of his own, he died quickly within 10 minutes of putting him in his own container... today I noticed one of my pregnant silver molly's swimming very eradically so i went to look at her, she was very bloated, her eye's were puffed out of place by about 1/8 of an inch about 20 minutes later I checked on her again and was unable to find her, after looking for several minutes, I finally found her sunk to the bottum on the tank, not moving at all, I scooped her up and there was no response, even after taking her out of the water she did not begin to gasp for air...

I am worried that my other fish will die the same way, I am not sure what it is. I keep the water at 75-78 degree's, and i change the water every 30-45 day's using water conditioner. (my Pleco is about 10-12 inches long so he keeps the tank very clean without a problem) I have also recently spotted several baby fry hiding in my decorations, and foilage, as well as several baby snails suddenly appearing (not sure what kind of snails they are, wether they are good or bad I have no idea), I also feed the fish dry flakes 2 times a day, and put about 2 tablespoons of aquarium salt in at each water change.

unfortunately I dont have a camera to take a picture of the dead fish to show what she looked like at this time, so hopefully my description is plenty. any help would be appreciated.

 

[BlueDragon]

OK, there's a few thing that you need to change here. So lets start from the begining. Did you cycle you tank before adding Fish and how did you do it?

Do you test your water with an aquarium water testing kit? What are the most recent results?

Now, you should be changing about half the tanks water every week, adding declorinater to the new water before putting in the tank.

Also, you're feeding your Fish way too often. This can be very dangerous, so I sugest maybe giving two to three days off, not feeding anything at all, and then you should only feed once a day. Maybe even just every other day for a while.

Are you planning on saving the fry? If so, do it now. Take out the ones you want to save and put them into your fully cycled fry tank.

What you are describing sounds like what I've had to go through recently due to a columnaris outbreak. Your Fish sound like they're suffering from ammonia poisoning. This would sugest that your tank is not cyled and therefor there are no bacteria to deal with the excess waist for you. This in turn leads to a build up of toxins in the tank and thus makes your Fish very ill as they breath it in.
If, however, you have fully cylced your tank then the problem is probably due to you not changing the water often enough.

The first thing you need to do is do a huge water change. Take out most of your old tank water and refill the tank with clean, treated water. This will reduce any toxins. Then you need to read up on here about cycling, water changes and ammonia poisoning. Make sure your doing everything right.

You will need to go out and buy a water testing kit and take a reading of where your at. You should test for ammonia, PH, GH, KH, NitrAte and NitrIte. And then if you post your results here people here can help you with that too.

It sounds like your going to need to do a fish-in cycle. This is exactly what I'm having to do despite doing a Fishless cycle, because the medication I was using to treat the columnaris killed off all my good bacteria so I'm having to build it all back up again which involves re-cycling my tank. It involves lots of bending down and carrying buckets of water around... and if your like me it also involves your kitchen carpet getting very wet. But it needs to be done ASAP.

Do that huge water change first though, that's the most important thing right now. Then read up about cycling and see if that's what you did before you got your Fish.

 

[Cmerr85]

Thanks for the help Bluedragon, Ill do a water change today... as far as the fry, I would like to keep them, I can get a 2nd tank around 10 gallons pretty cheap to put them in... if I can catch them.

with the amonia poisoning you are talking about, that would accuire with excess waste being in the tank for to long?

 

[Cmerr85]

Alright, I did a water change, and tested the water
Post Change
Nitrate 80
Nitrite 0
Hardness 75-150
Alkalinity between 120-180
PH 7.5

I also had a sample tested of my old water at the store Im not sure the exact numbers, but they said my PH was through the roof, and my waste (nitrate I think) was super high as well, they also said there was little to no ammonia in the water.

I also added a small heater to push the temp up to 80 easier, (pet shop guy said molly's like 80 degree's)

 

[BlueDragon]

Yeah, your readings seem way off there. Your nitrate is through the roof and that may well be the reason your Fish are ill. I would treat this as if you need to do a Fish-in cycle. Have you ever cycled your tank fully? Read up on Fish-in cycles. Basically you'll need to change most (almost all) of the water from your tank every day for at least a month, sometimes as long as eight weeks I think. I'm going on a month now and it's not done yet. Change most of the water every day, then about six hours later test the new water with you test kit. You'll need to test for ammonia, PH, GH, KH, Nirate and Nitrite. Do this every day. If your ammonia is up high you'll need to do another water change strate away to keep it down. Same with that nitrate reading.
What you should also do is find someone with some mature media. This had me confused for a bit, but all it is is a snipping from a filter cartridge that has been fully cycled. Your petshop may well be able to give you a bit out of one of their tanks. If all else fails I've got a net full of used gravel from a cycled tank from my petshop. But if your going to use that then it must be from a tank with an undergravel filter. Otherwise it'll be usless. If you can get hold of a bit of filter cartridge (and that is by far the best thing to use) then shove it up next to your own in you tank. Then leave it totally alone. If you can only get gravel then use the end off a pair of tights to hang it up inside the tank, under the water. Again, leave it well alone.
This mature media will be heaving with bacteria and is used to build up your own bacteria in the tank, which clings onto the inside of the filter cartridge and under the gravel of all tanks when they're fully cycled. The idea being that by putting the live bacteria into your tank they'll spread and colonize it. The bacteria eat the waist made by your Fish and so keep any toxins right down for you.

I'm new to Fishkeeping myself, so I may well be missing something out here. But I think that I've covered the basics. But go have a read up on Fish-in cycles, which will give you a much better idea of what to do than I can.

 

[Cmerr85]

Alright, the testing kit wasnt clear, didnt see the ammonia strips... but the ammonia level is 0 in the tank.

from what I see, if i can find someone with a healthy tank I can do a fishin cycle without changing any water, I just need like you said a piece of a healthy filter, or even the dirty stuff inside the filter.

 

[DJH584]

Alright, the testing kit wasnt clear, didnt see the ammonia strips... but the ammonia level is 0 in the tank.

I am a tad confused by this. Are you saying that you are using test strips to test for ammonia?
If so, I think you'll find that most people on here will agree with me that you need a liquid test kit.
Test strips are not really that reliable.

As for water changes, I would suggest about 25% per week every week using dechlorinated/treated water - your fish will thank you for it by being able to thrive in healthier conditions.

David

 

[4seasons]

Alright, the testing kit wasnt clear, didnt see the ammonia strips... but the ammonia level is 0 in the tank.

from what I see, if i can find someone with a healthy tank I can do a fishin cycle without changing any water, I just need like you said a piece of a healthy filter, or even the dirty stuff inside the filter.

You don't want test strips of any kind. They are useless. You need a liquid test kit like the API freshwater master kit that most of us use. The two key test in that kit are ammonia and nitrite. If you cant find a kit that has both then you can buy just a ammonia kit and a nitrite kit separate but it must be a liquid based kit. Test your tank with those 2 test everyday until you see zeros for a week without water changes. Any time that a test shows any amount of ammonia or nitrite do a large water change. Read up in the beginners section on fish-in cycle to get a better idea of the process.

 

[BlueDragon]

Alright, the testing kit wasnt clear, didnt see the ammonia strips... but the ammonia level is 0 in the tank.

from what I see, if i can find someone with a healthy tank I can do a fishin cycle without changing any water, I just need like you said a piece of a healthy filter, or even the dirty stuff inside the filter.

You will still need to do huge water changes every day, it's how you keep the toxins down for your Fish. It's very important that you do.