Mysterious molly deaths

[Mixer]

I bought these two Molly a couple of days ago from the large chain store, acclimated them, and put them in. They seemed to be doing well and then I awoke this morning to both of them dead. I have one other dalmatian Molly that has been in this tank for about a month.

I tested my water and it seems there is a mini cycle going on, I will do a PWC today, my water results below, see image too.

Ph 7.6
Ammo .25
Nitrite .25
Nitrate ~ 1

So I think that the mini cycle is because I added those Molly and a couple of gourami on Friday evening. Then this morning I found the dead fish.

So any ideas will be well received.

 

[roydooms]

Are they in the 36g or 10g? You should introduce a few new fish at a time for the essential bacteria to catch up.

Edit: I'm not sure if mollies are compatible with gourami. What else do you have in the tank? Just the Dalmatian Molly?

 

[ejaramillo01]

Obviously the move to the new tank, plus the high levels of ammonia and nitrites, stressed them to much.... Possibly that why they died.

Just my opinion.

 

[Mixer]

Yeah maybe 2 gourami, and these 2 Molly and the snail were too many at one time.

This is in the 36G , and I have tetras in there as well as other gourami, in addition to what I already stated.

 

[Vircomore]

Yea, if your nitrite test is even slightly purple - chances are new fish especially from a chain store aren't going to acclimate and will pass.

Livebearers have additional problems in chain stores because they have to put them all over to keep them from crossbreeding. So some of them will end up in crowded and aggressive tanks.

 

[Josh]

I've had some lyretail mollies that looked just like that and were also bought from a chain store. I was attempting to use them as cycling fish. Maybe its because they were hybrids with possibly weakened immune systems or maybe it was just a bad batch.

Chain stores often have a higher chance of disease and infections.

 

[xxwolfpackof1xx]

Are they in the 36g or 10g? You should introduce a few new fish at a time for the essential bacteria to catch up.

Edit: I'm not sure if mollies are compatible with gourami. What else do you have in the tank? Just the Dalmatian Molly?

my fire dg got along well wiith my mollys so i think they are compatible

Sent from my Vortex using Aquarium

 

[Mixer]

Well my tank is cycling again, and I think that is why I am losing fish. It was already cycled and showed no ammonia, no nitrites, and no nitrates, so I started to stock it over about three weeks.

Well now that I am almost stocked it appears to be cycling again, ammo .25, nitrites 1.0, and nitrates 5.0 , so I have lost 3 fish and a snail in the last two days, and another fish before that.

I don't understand why it would start to cycle again, how can I avoid this in the future?

 

[James_in_MN]

Well my tank is cycling again, and I think that is why I am losing fish. It was already cycled and showed no ammonia, no nitrites, and no nitrates, so I started to stock it over about three weeks.

Well now that I am almost stocked it appears to be cycling again, ammo .25, nitrites 1.0, and nitrates 5.0 , so I have lost 3 fish and a snail in the last two days, and another fish before that.

I don't understand why it would start to cycle again, how can I avoid this in the future?

I'm not sure if your tank was cycled or not. You said that your tank read 0ppm ammonia/nitrItes/nitrAtes, when typically a cycled tank would show 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrItes, and >5ppm nitrAtes, wouldn't it? When my 20g tank finished cycling, it was at 0/0/10, and that's with live plants.

I don't think adding new fish would do anything beyond starting a mini-cycle either. Over the last two weeks, I doubled the bio load on my 20g and experienced a mini-cycle (between 0 and 0.25ppm ammonia), which quickly returned to normal days later with no nitrIte spike.

 

[Mixer]

Ok well I am starting to think maybe it wasn't cycled in the first place even though I tested and tried to make sure it was good to go before buying fish, it was four weeks of cycling I had nitrites, nitrates, and it all went to zero and stayed there for four days straight, so I figured it was cycled.

Any way here is today's test, nitrites still high, I did a 50% PWC yesterday, will do it again tomorrow. I am losing fish almost one a day, really sucks.

I guess it will eventually either be a fish less cycle or it will be cycled.