Molly help

[Vamptramp3405]

I have a 55 gallon tank. I've had the tank for a few months now. Had a few batches of fry and all. But recently I've had alot of my babies die and moms acting funny. My ammonia is at a .50, nitrite 1.0, and nitrate 10. We have been doing 20-30% water changes weekly but it just is getting worse and out of hand. I don't want to go adding a bunch of chemicals in there to "balance", I wanna figure the natural balance out. Please help!!

 

[reefdiver]

The best is to do a 50% water change weekly accompanied by a good gravel vac. It is also good to rinse out your filter media when u do your PWC. Set aside some tank water and rinse it there.

 

[Deckape]

Hello

I have a 55 gallon tank. I've had the tank for a few months now. Had a few batches of fry and all. But recently I've had alot of my babies die and moms acting funny. My ammonia is at a .50, nitrite 1.0, and nitrate 10. We have been doing 20-30% water changes weekly but it just is getting worse and out of hand. I don't want to go adding a bunch of chemicals in there to "balance", I wanna figure the natural balance out. Please help!!

Hi, I am glad you didnt reach for the first bottle of chemicals and found us instead. Your tank isnt cycled. It should if properly cycled, never have any ammonia, no nitrites and less than 40 nitrates. I am adding a shortcut to an article that will help. The author is a member on here as well and does know what he's talking about. How many mollys did you have in there when this happened?

I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?!

 

[Deckape]

How many mollys are in the 55 gallon now? keep us updated on your progress if you can.

 

[Vamptramp3405]

Thank u all for the help. I have about 20 fish in the tank. There's 3 guppies and the rest r a variety of mollies and platies. So I beleive there's about 20 that we can count (they swim too fast). We have done weekly water changes and when we tested tge water and the ammonia was soo sky high we read that the best thing was to do like a 75% water change so that's what we did. And then last night I came home and 5 of my very healthy growing babies that are about 3 weeks old were dead. . I rinse the filters out when I do the water change too.and an awsome gravel vacuum but i have very little amount of gravel cause it was holding too much food and poop. What am I doing wrong? Should I get another big filter?

 

[Deckape]

Thank u all for the help. I have about 20 fish in the tank. There's 3 guppies and the rest r a variety of mollies and platies. So I beleive there's about 20 that we can count (they swim too fast). We have done weekly water changes and when we tested tge water and the ammonia was soo sky high we read that the best thing was to do like a 75% water change so that's what we did. And then last night I came home and 5 of my very healthy growing babies that are about 3 weeks old were dead. . I rinse the filters out when I do the water change too.and an awsome gravel vacuum but i have very little amount of gravel cause it was holding too much food and poop. What am I doing wrong? Should I get another big filter?

Seems like another filter would help. When you vaccum the gravel, you are actually getting rid of much beneficial bacteria. Here is my opinion, try doing more smaller PWCs every couple of days. Don't get too aggressive cleaning the gravel though. Gently and maybe only the surface. See what happens. There is no such thing as too much filtration. Are the rest doing ok? Are you doing OK?

 

[Vamptramp3405]

ok so today the levels are a tad different but not much, ammonia is .25, nitrite 1.0 and nitrate between the 10-20 mark. now i had an idea but dont know if i can get away with this. I have a little 10 gallon tank that has been cycling for 2-3 days now with NO fish in it, there is no ammonia, no nitrites and a tiny tiny bit of nitrates.... NOW can I put all 20 of my fish in the little tank for a day or two while I get the 55 cycled? and I just did a 20% water change on the 55 and it didnt change the levels much at all. I am just soo stumped. the ammonia levels arent too bad but i cant seem to get the nitrite levels to budge... i just want all my fishies happy and healthy. no one is even having babies anymore cause the tank is soo messed up

 

[Vamptramp3405]

any help?

 

[librarygirl]

ok so today the levels are a tad different but not much, ammonia is .25, nitrite 1.0 and nitrate between the 10-20 mark. now i had an idea but dont know if i can get away with this. I have a little 10 gallon tank that has been cycling for 2-3 days now with NO fish in it, there is no ammonia, no nitrites and a tiny tiny bit of nitrates.... NOW can I put all 20 of my fish in the little tank for a day or two while I get the 55 cycled? and I just did a 20% water change on the 55 and it didnt change the levels much at all. I am just soo stumped. the ammonia levels arent too bad but i cant seem to get the nitrite levels to budge... i just want all my fishies happy and healthy. no one is even having babies anymore cause the tank is soo messed up

If you let a tank "run" for a few days it isn't cycling. If the 10 gal isn't cycled either you're going to have the same problem you have now, only probably worse b/c all those fish in a 10 gallon are going to make a huge mess.

A 20% water change won't do much when the levels are high. The test will tell you how much of a pwc (partial water change) to do. You want to keep ammonia and nitrite under 0.25 and nitrate, ideally, under 40. So your ammonia is OK at the moment at 0.25, but your nitrites are way too high for fish at 1. If you do a 50% water change, you'll only get them down to .50, which is still too high, so you'd need to do another 50% water change after that, to get them down to 0.25. So see why your 20% didn't help much

You'll do OK if you just keep testing every day and do water changes as needed and be prepared to do more than one in a day.

 

[Homedog98]

Just curious, but what test kit are you using?