Help with my black molly

[amieb0424]

Unfortunately I had to do a full water change on my tank as I had to move it. All but one of my fish seem happy so far (its been a day and a half). One of my two black mollies has a bulging eye. All my levels are good.. the only thing I noticed is that my temp is too low. I'm workin g on bringing it up slowly but I don't want to shock them. I also bought API stress coat and added the recommended amount. His eye seems to have gone down a little but I'm not sure if I should add more stress coat, wait it out, get something else to help, separate him (which would be hard as I don't have an imidiate second tank, although I am working on that!), or what. With all my other fish being healthy, from what I can see, I don't want to harm them by going crazy trying to fix this molly.

I am new at this whole aqarium thing and I am becoming obsessed. I want to get at least one more tank I love it so much. On the other hand though I'm nervouse because I have had some major ups and downs with this tank; so I want to master it before I get another.

Anyway this tank is 25 gal with 7 neon tetras, two black mollies (had three one died in the one of the down phases), two spotted mollies (also had three one died), four zebra danios, one small catfish (only suppose to get 3-4"), and a siamese algae eater.

Any advice on how to help my one little black molly would be greatly appreciated, I'd hate to loose another one.

Also one last thing... did I over crowd my tank? The people at petsmart said I was fine but I'm so worried about it cause I've heard that causes stress on the fish which can lead to death too.

Thanks in advance!

 

[amieb0424]

Ok so this morning my black molly seems alright. Eye still bildging some but swimming great and eating great (in fact she was a pig I think she ate more than all my other fish).
Although I'm not in the clear because I found my siamese algae eater dead he seemed fine to me yesterday but maybe I was wrong and there was something going on...
Also one of my spotted mollies seems a bit sluggish-- she didn't really eat much and is just swimming slowly around. No clampped fins no spots.
Checked the levels again and I'm still good. I haven't added anything extra because I don't want to make matters worse. Is there something more I should be doing to help these guys. I feel like a terrible fish owner everytime one dies

 

[Taiken5968]

You really need to test your water and make sure you don't have an ammonia spike. Doing a full water change, can sometimes mess up the nitrogen cycle. It cleans out a lot of the bacteria that convert ammonia into less harmful things.

 

[amieb0424]

Thank you! That makes sense.. I've been testing with a 5 in 1 aquarium test kit and all the levels are fine it was blowing my mind... low and behold doesn't test for ammonia. But be a newbie mistake

Thank you so much. Hopefully I can fix it!

 

[Taiken5968]

Yeah for some reason they sell those separate. I would pick some up ASAP. They aren't the most accurate though, but they do the job.

 

[BBradbury]

Hello amie...

If you have an established (cycled) tank, it should be set up with substrate, filtration, lighting and heat. Next, your "Livebearers", especially Mollies need a bit of standard aquarium salt added to the water. I add a teaspoon to every 5 gallons of the new, treated tap water. You don't need more than that. Your other fish and plants will do fine with such a small dose.

You must remove and replace half the tank water at least every 2 weeks, more often is better. The more water you replace and the more often you replace it, the healthier your fish and plants will be. No slacking on the water changes! You don't want dissolved fish waste building up in the water and hurting your fish.

B

 

[amieb0424]

Petsmart is 5 min. Away from me and luckily I was able to run right down! I got one of the readers that stay in the tank.. the lady said they might not stay accurate but it should be good for a month or so. Right now it is reading "safe <0.02 ppm"
I'm kinda stumped now.. could the ammonia level still be ok because I used the same rocks decor filter etc? Plus I did leave about 2in of water in not sure if that wouldve helped? ( that's the most I could leave so I could lift it....)
Or could the leave it in your tank thing be wrong and I should run down again and get the actual test for it... don't know why I didn't just do both anyway.
And if its right could my fish just be having stress problems from this whole thing. I mean as of right now they seem to be moving around nicely.. they look happy (except for the eye bulge. .)

 

[amieb0424]

Thank you B that's very helpful
Beforw this whole full water change I would clean my tank once a week at least 10% water change 50% if needed.. which I felt usualy happened every other week. My mollies seem to poo a lot.. haha
I plan to keep my system the same now. Unless I need to do it more times a week for a while as I just did that full water change

 

[amieb0424]

Oh and I wasn't sure about the salt I read somewhere that my cat fish would be very sensitive to it..?