Mollies starnge behavior

[meedo]

Hi all,

My Mollies or most of them started to act strangely lately (2 days ago), there is loss of appetite, they swim near the bottom or hiding behind the plants most of the time, they do this strange thing which they scratch their bodies against the bottom rocks very furiously like they want to take something of their bodies, last but not least there are a lot of fights going on female/female mostly.

Any ideas?

[meedo]

Worth to mention that the plants also started to die, I am afraid the fishes will be next

[rich311k]

Parameters? Tank size? Fish involved? When was the tank set up? Last water change? How much?

[meedo]

Temp: 27 degrees C
NO3: 0
NO2: 0
GH: 12
KH: 6
pH: 7.6

Tank size: 60 Liter

Fish community:
2 small white nugget plecos (1 inch)
1 Leopard catfish (1.5 inch)
3 White Dalmation Mollies 2f/1m (1.2 inch)
3 Black Dalmation Mollies 2f/1m (1.2 inch)
3 Sailfin Mollies 2f/1f (1.5 inch)

The tank is new, just 5 weeks old.

I did 1/3 change 1 week ago and another 1/3 one hr ago (the parameters are after water change) after a red-tailed shark incident the guys here suspected that the ammonia might be high and I need to do partial water change.

Worth to mention that the Sailfin female gave birth 2 weeks ago and I have 4 healthy naughty small fishes swimming all over the tank and eating normally!

[Mdakotared]

Scratching against rocks reads like Ich/Ick, especially if followed by small white spots. Do you have a heater? Fluctuating temperatures will make fish susceptible to disease. Its good practice to keep no more than one male Molly per three or four females. The males will literally "badger" a female to death, if attention is not spread among a number of females IMO.

[meedo]

I have a precise heater (plus/minus 0.25 degree) and it is set to 26C.

Well I read a wonderful article about Ich/Ick here and it seems that treating with higher temperature is the best way to work for me although I am not sure yet that it is Ich/Ick, the only symptoms I can see so far is the loss of appetite and the scratching against the rocks (which is done for the side of the fish not the bottom). However seeing a white spot on a dalmatian Molly can be challenging job

I will start rising the temperature gradually to over 86F (30C) and hope it works. I will keep a good eye on the fishes and see if any change of behavior starts.

[mom2reds]

meedo It sounds like your tank is not cycled , correct me if I am wrong, If this is the case be very careful increasing your temps, make sure you have a bubller or lower the water level so that there is plenty of water movement, high temps and increase ammonia levels are really hard on the fish. I would suggest that you do at least 50% pwc (partial water change) daily untill your tank is cycled. If your not seeing spots it might not be ICH internal parisites can cause these symptoms to.
Watch for white stringy poo, poor appitite and wieght loos

[meedo]

I just got me an expensive test kit and throw my test stripes away, the bad news is:

Ammonia 10 mg/l
pH value is 8
KH is 11

based on this and the table in the test kit my water is actually toxic
I will do a 50% pwc now and test the pH again.

I have high aeration in the tank using two separate air pumps!

[meedo]

Ok after 50% pwc and adding pH/KH minus the values are:

Ammonia 5-10 mg/l
pH 7
KH 10

I also added a Bactozym (Tetra product) to the filter media.

The loss of appetite is not as bad as before but still not eating as they used to, the crazy scratching behavior nearly disappeared for the moment. One pregnant Molly is acting like blind or drunk, sort of disorientation, I am guessing she is not going to see the morning light

[rich311k]

Change 75% of the water as soon as you can. Wait a few hours and do it again. That ammonia is still incredibly high.