Mollies dying and don't know why........

[kayakers2]

I use a test kit that checks everything but nitrate levels. I check levels 2-3 times per week and all levels are in the normal range KH and GH are on the low end of the normal range. I have not worried about nitrates because we have many live plants in the tank. I do weekly water changes of about 20%. For food they get a mixture of vegi flakes and regular tropical fish food. I add salt at water changes. It's a 25 gal. tank with a whisper 40 filter and a millionair bubbler, 1 Beta , 1 Shark, 2 flying foxes, 6 adult mollies and down to 1 baby (in net pen). We have lost 3 babies and 2 adult mollies in 1 week. We lost 1 the week before. Now 2 more are weak....bent spine and hanging on the bottom swimming slowly, tails curving froward, if up near the top they just kind of hang there not hardly moving their fins. but not going anywhere just resting. I tried 2 thermometers and the temp is 78 degrees. All other fish appear normal and happy. We also have a 75 gal. community tank with a large variety of fish that I treat the same as I do this tank. I can't remember the last fish we lost from the larger tank. Thanks in advance for your help.
Kevin

 

[Menagerie]

bent spine and hanging on the bottom swimming slowly

Possibly fish TB. I don't know much about it as I have never dealt with it. I believe it is contagious.
I have to run to class, one of these may help:
http://fish.mongabay.com/diseases.htm
http://www.aqualink.com/disease/sdisease.html#ich
http://www.aquatronicsonline.com/hobbyist/hobbyist3.htm

 

[Menagerie]

kayakers2, how are your fish doing?
I found a couple of sites that discuss fish TB:
http://www.aquamaniacs.net/popeye.html
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/health.htm

However, I'm not sure why I connected bent spine with fish TB :?

 

[kayakers2]

It's hard to admit I was such a dumb a**.

Thanks a bunch for your help and I visited the sites you recommended. The T.B. did not fit all of our symptoms so I read and searched numerous sites. As a last resort we decided to take the tank down, clean everything and restart from scratch. I was frustrated because this had been the lowest maint. tank we have. I put the fish in our hospital tank and dismantled the one we are having problems with. When removing the undergravel filter I found the cause. I powered the undergravel filter with a Penguin reverse flow pump. Well about 7 weeks ago the pump died. I buy most of our supplies from Big Al's and decided that I would order a new one when I needed more supplies. I do a water change weekly and vacuum the gravel and with plants it never occurred to me that this would be a problem. I never considered the space under the filter getting as contaminated as it was since there was no water flowing. Lots of funk would be an understatement. I only considered that with a whisper 40 on a 25 gal. tank there should be adequate biological filtration for 9 fish.
The ending is happy though because my wife wanted this to be a planted tank so I used a healthy layer of Flourite as a substrate and filled it with water from our 75 gal. planted. Everyone appears happy and the mollies showed almost immediate improvement.
Thanks again and I apologize for not giving you enough info to help me.

Kevin

 

[Menagerie]

Glad you found the problem. I have never had a UGF, but from what I hear, they are messy and at times hard to clean.
I would go with a HOB -- a bio wheel or AquaClear on the 25 gal. What kind of filter is on the 75 gal?

 

[kayakers2]

We are using an XP3 on the 75 gal. and a Whisper 40 on the 25gal.. Since it will be a planted tank would you still add a HOB Bio-Wheel filter?

 

[Umberle]

Glad you found the problem. I have never had a UGF, but from what I hear, they are messy and at times hard to clean.

how exactly does one clean a UGF? *gulps theatricaly*

 

[Menagerie]

It's my understanding, you need to take it out and wash it. I hear it's *GROSS*. I guess canisters can get gross, but you don't have to pull the whole thing and the tank apart.

No, I would not add a HOB to a planted tank. I was trying to figure out where the UGF was?

 

[Umberle]

oh yick....that's not going to be alot of fun....I can't wait to get a bigger tank... there are alot of things I'll do differently