Stop I be worrying?

[RioS1]

Hi everyone.

I have a 94L with 7 balloon mollies, 7 guppies, 2 platys and 6 harlequins, so a community tank. To Pets at Homes regulations, we have plenty of space. Our levels are all within healthy ranges, I can not give you the exact values as our local pet shop does this for us for free. The temperature of the tank is 26 degrees Celsius.

Our white balloon molly tends to relax and face vertically, up towards the water line. We have had her 6 weeks+ now. She is young. I have noticed this was happening roughly 7 days ago. I noticed she was staying at the top a bit more. She doesn’t struggle to get back to swimming. It tends to be more in the morning or late evenings when the light is off. I am looking at her now and she is swimming around the tank, from the bottom to the top and socialising with the others. She came to the top with the others and relaxed and went more vertical. She did not struggle to get back into swimming. I have not seen any of the other mollies doing this. Should I be worried about her behaviour?

She had her fry just under 2 weeks ago now so it won’t be due to labour etc. The last few days I think her stomach has got slighter rounder, but it does not look bloated. We have males in the tank so there is a chance she could be pregnant again.

I use stress coat every time I do a water change. I did my last water change last night.

I use aquarium salt after a water change too.

All the other fish are happy and healthy.

I am going to fast them for today at least, just because it might be the sensible thing to do incase it could turn into swim bladder. Then do the pea trick.

Any advice or help?

 

[King Fisher]

I don't know what Pets at Homes is or what regulations they are proposing but your tank is very much overstocked.

 

[RioS1]

Any advice on my fish?

 

[RioS1]

Pets at Home is the main pet shop in the U.K.

They have a point system. For our tank we have 47 points. Mollies, guppies and platys are 2 points, halequins are 1 point. We have 38 points so it is fine. There is plenty of room for fish 2cm to 3cm each.

1cm of tropical fish to 1 litre. We can have up to 94cm of fish. We have 40cm.

 

[King Fisher]

There's more to keeping fish than measurements. That system seems a lot like the one inch of fish per gallon rule which is very inaccurate. By that rule you could put an Oscar in a 45 Liter tank. Overstocked tanks can lead to aggression in non aggressive fish, disease from stress, disease from water quality issues due to bioload, erratic or unusual behavior. But it's your tank so you can do as you please.

I think you could try fasting and peas. You might have to wait and see if anything more develops.

 

[RioS1]

There's more to keeping fish than measurements. That system seems a lot like the one inch of fish per gallon rule which is very inaccurate. By that rule you could put an Oscar in a 45 Liter tank. Overstocked tanks can lead to aggression in non aggressive fish, disease from stress, disease from water quality issues due to bioload, erratic or unusual behavior. But it's your tank so you can do as you please.

I think you could try fasting and peas. You might have to wait and see if anything more develops.

I’ve used pets at home and local pet shop advice since I was a little girl, I’ve rarely had poorly fish, hence why I am asking for advice now. I will fast and feed peas. Thanks.

 

[King Fisher]

I understand what you might have done. I've overstocked tanks myself and I had a lot of problems. Pet shops do provide poor advice at times and outdated advice.

The fish you have and your measurements aren't correct. Maybe they are now but not full grown. Balloon mollies get 7 cm, guppies, platys and harlequins get 5 cm. So roughly 125 cm of fish total in 94 cm max for your tank at full size?

I'm not attacking you I just think you've been misinformed and I know what a pain in the rear it is to deal with issues from overstocking.

 

[RioS1]

By the sounds of it, we haven’t been informed correctly. We are planning to order a 450L tank on the weekend, so should solve that problem for when they’re full grown. Thanks for the advice