What the hell happened?

[Notsofab]

I thought too that the fish may have entered your tank carrying a disease. All you can do is keep a close eye on the others and do daily partial water changes.

Also ammonia isnt toxic in your ph and temperature until it gets to 1%. Though of course you still want to keep ammonia and nitrite at 0.

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Thank you Black Angel for a more compassionate reply. You know, I have read and read and read over the last few weeks and asked loads of questions. Being new, I know I have made mistakes - confussed between LFS advice and advice from people here. It isn't as straight forward as some people might think and it's easy for experienced fish keepers to take their knowledge for granted. But I really didn't want to cause any unnecessary distress to my fish. I know my water hasn't been perfect yet, but its not that far away.

I'm gutted about the poor Molly. We had already grown fond of her. But I am sure looking back that she wasn't right from the very beginning. The red patch was already visible when I bought her home and her fin was never right. I feel very overwhelmed right now, trying to cope with a tank that I though was cycled but wasn't. Trying to get the water conditions right. Then the birth of fry. Now the death of my Molly.

You know on Saturday we totally emptied this tank and refilled it with fresh water just adding dechlorinator. With only 3 fish in it, buy Monday evening the reading were already bad.

 

[Ani]

Sorry to hear your problems. Most fish-keepers have casualties and I lost a platy in my first week of the hobby. Water changes are the key. There's not much you can do if the fish was a bit weak before your brought her from your LFS. Possibly the stress of being caught, moved and being in a new tank might have made her more susceptable to your water quality. Good luck with your survivors.

 

[trace1]

its really hard going when you get bad advice from lfs. same think also happened to me & i lost all my guppies , funny enuff only the neon tetras survived my small tank that was cycling. but was lucky as i picked up a bigger tank that had very mature media in it so it cycled almost over nite & i put the neons in there & they still going now. as for the smaller tank i emptied it cleaned everything & got new sand & am now cycling it again from scratch. but did get very disheartened at the beginning. but keep with it as things will get better

 

[black angel]

Stripping the tank down and refilling with fresh water isnt recommended unless the water is poisoned.
What did you do with the filter? You may have lost some of your cycle but keep an eye on the readings just now and watch for the ammonia and then the nitrite spike. Keep the ammonia level below one and then after the nitrite spikes the ammonia levels should go down, but dont do more than 30% in one water change as you are trying to mature the water. This process can take up to 6 weeks so you must be diligent in watching your tank.
Leave the filter alone for this time and add a few flakes to it to keep the ammonia level going but stop adding once you get a nitrite reading. Dont add any more fish just now and you can add aquarium tonic salt at 1 level teaspoon per gallon and then again 12 hours later to get to a .2% solution. This will help your fish through any high nitrite spikes you may get.
When doing water changes, remember to add back the salt but not to add salt through evaporation loss.
What temperature is the water at and do you temperature match the water when doing water changes?