# Fish acting weird???



## Moonshadow1 (May 6, 2011)

Ok.. I'm very new to aquariums. I've had one set up for 6-8 wks now. I have posted on other fish forums before but this is the first time I've posted here. Figured I'd give this place a try... 

I have a 29 gal. tank with 4 mollies and 2 platies. When I started up the tank I THOUGHT I knew what I was doing and I was doing it right.. obviously I was wrong. 

Anyway, the last 2-3 days I've had one of the female mollies acting a bit off. She swims around ok, but when she isn't swimming she is just basically sitting at the bottom of the tank almost vertical. Tail to the ground head straight up. She'll sit like that for a while, then start swimming around just fine. She is eating, but not like she normally would. Aside from that, she looks perfectly normal. Not weird spots on her, no fin rot or mangled fins.

The weird thing is, I also have a male Molly (dalmatian) also doing this, however he still eats great, when I put food in he swims to the top right away and inhales his food quickly... he still chases the females around trying to breed with them, he acts perfectly normal, but when he is resting, he also sitting somewhat vertical to the bottom of the tank. 

Right now, I am looking at the aquarium and all 4 mollies and both platies (both of which are VERY pregnant) are swimming around just fine. 

More info on the tank...

ph - 7.5-ish
ammonia .25
nitrite 0
nitrate between 10-20 

I use the API liquid test kits and as long as I've had the tank I have never gotten a nitrite reading. As you can see I'm still fighting with the ammonia. I use Prime as a water conditioner. Because of the ammonia I have been doing water changes every day to every other day. 

I have 4 snails in the tank and 3 small plants (will eventually ad more) and two medium pieces of driftwood in the tank. I do have some salt in the water as everyone has told me mollies prefer this so I've been doing that since the first day I added fish. 

Any suggestions on what could be causing the fish to act like this would be great appreciated.


----------



## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

What type of food do you you feed?How much and how often?Sounds like the tank was not cycled first which can be rough on fish.Also,salt does not evaporate.Therefore if you remove,say ten gallons of water you would only add salt for the ten you took out,not the full 29 gallons.Prime I believe bonds ammonia,so you will always get the reading for that if its present in your tap.


----------



## Moonshadow1 (May 6, 2011)

majerah1 said:


> What type of food do you you feed?How much and how often?Sounds like the tank was not cycled first which can be rough on fish.Also,salt does not evaporate.Therefore if you remove,say ten gallons of water you would only add salt for the ten you took out,not the full 29 gallons.Prime I believe bonds ammonia,so you will always get the reading for that if its present in your tap.



I have both flakes and frozen food. Obviously don't feed it all at the same time. Usually feed it once a day. They eat it up pretty quickly, within seconds sometimes. They are pigs. Especially the mollies who are like little vacuum cleaners. 

When I change the water I only replace salt that was taken out from the water change, I don't put salt in for the full 29 gallons. 

I have tested the tap water (I have well water) and there is no ammonia in the tape water. 

I talked to the guy at the fish store today about the two mollies behavior and what they are doing in the tank. He was really at a loss to explain why they are doing this...


----------



## thenewseverum (Nov 23, 2010)

I know when you are starting new aquariums the chances of fish loss are there. I think considering your also doing water changes very frequently isn't helping the aquarium cycle itself. Ive seen that behavior in fish before.. on the bad side, never ends well. With the drift wood I am shocked your pH is so high. Did you test your tap for pH? just to take a look.


----------



## Moonshadow1 (May 6, 2011)

thenewseverum said:


> I know when you are starting new aquariums the chances of fish loss are there. I think considering your also doing water changes very frequently isn't helping the aquarium cycle itself. Ive seen that behavior in fish before.. on the bad side, never ends well. With the drift wood I am shocked your pH is so high. Did you test your tap for pH? just to take a look.



Thanks for the info..

It was suggested to me (via another aquarium forum) that I should do water changes frequently to help keep ammonia levels down?? Is this not correct? Typically if I wait even 2-3 days between water changes the ammonia levels get higher than I would like (around 1.0 or so highest I have ever let it get was 2.0 and that was weeks ago)... if I do it every other day it stays .5 or less. 

Good question the PH, I had never tested the tap water for the PH myself (have tested it for ammonia before not PH). 

The results were very interesting and I do not understand it at all. Maybe someone can give me some ideas on the PH. So I tested my tap water with the API liquid master kit. PH right from the faucet came out as 6.0. So I got another tube and tested my tank water again. PH was somewhere color wise between 7.2-7.6. How is this possible?? Just trying to understand it...

The PH of the tank water, even before I added Driftwood (about 7-8-9 days ago) was always around 7.5. 

I wonder if the fish behavior could possibly be stress related? I noticed a couple times today that my male cremecicle lyretail Molly has been chasing around both the dalmatian male and the female that is acting "off" as well. I even saw him nip at them a couple times. Though, maybe he can just tell something is wrong with them?? I have no idea.... The Dalmatian male tends to nip back.. but the female just swims off as fast as she can.


----------



## Fearmancer (Apr 24, 2011)

Sounds to me like you have a combination of problems. #1 To me it seems like your tank is still cycling. You can do frequent water changes until your ammonia is under control but that will cause the cycling to slow down to a crawl and mean more stress (for you and your fish). See the nitrogen cycle. But you're probably going to lose those fish anyway, IMO. Or you can let the tank cycle and cut your losses. #2 There may be a stress issue with the mollies. Having only two males and two females may cause a lot of stress on all of the mollies. Mollies don't pair up. So neither female will get any rest and the males will be competing harshly. The rule of thumb is two females for every male. But since your tank is still cycling it wouldn't be wise to add more fish, because of ammonia shock. So what I would do in your situation would be to do weekly cycles to reduce nitrAtes, monitor your tank closely (I keep a log book, helps with remembering stuff). If you have a quarantine tank, I would divide it in two and put the two mollies with the odd behavior in it. That stinks though. "Fish in" cycling usually kills fish and shortens their life span. I used danios to cycle mine, and I lost every one. The alternative is "The fishless cycle" and had I known it was possible, would have used it myself. Sorry 'bout the ramble but I figured it would be of use.


----------



## Moonshadow1 (May 6, 2011)

Fearmancer said:


> Sounds to me like you have a combination of problems. #1 To me it seems like your tank is still cycling. You can do frequent water changes until your ammonia is under control but that will cause the cycling to slow down to a crawl and mean more stress (for you and your fish). See the nitrogen cycle. But you're probably going to lose those fish anyway, IMO. Or you can let the tank cycle and cut your losses. #2 There may be a stress issue with the mollies. Having only two males and two females may cause a lot of stress on all of the mollies. Mollies don't pair up. So neither female will get any rest and the males will be competing harshly. The rule of thumb is two females for every male. But since your tank is still cycling it wouldn't be wise to add more fish, because of ammonia shock. So what I would do in your situation would be to do weekly cycles to reduce nitrAtes, monitor your tank closely (I keep a log book, helps with remembering stuff). If you have a quarantine tank, I would divide it in two and put the two mollies with the odd behavior in it. That stinks though. "Fish in" cycling usually kills fish and shortens their life span. I used danios to cycle mine, and I lost every one. The alternative is "The fishless cycle" and had I known it was possible, would have used it myself. Sorry 'bout the ramble but I figured it would be of use.



Thanks...

I've read about the nitrogen cycle, but of course it was after I had fish... so as I said in my first post I really didn't know what I was doing... I thought I understood it all.. but then I realized I had no clue. 

As far as the mollies go, I had 2 other females originally, but they literally died while or right after having babies. One only had 4 and just died.. the other died a couple days after having babies, she got this weird U shape to her, after having babies, couldn't hardly swim anymore and then died, which I can't remember the name of it, but I read its something that can happen to live bearers. I still have the 4 babies from the one molly, they are about 2 wks old now and doing well.... 

and now both platies I have are obviously pregnant as well.. 

Anyway, I wanted to add a couple more females but figured I should wait.... so this is why I only have a couple females and a couple males...


----------



## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Sorry things are going so rough for you.If you do indeed lose the fish you have in there now,then I would fishless cycle and then slowly add.The PH is a bit odd,but the most important thing is constant PH.So if its as high as 8.4,as long as it stays there most fish will get along happily in it.However if its swinging from 5.8 to 8.4 within a day,thats when you need to figure out whats up(obviously these are examples of extremes)The baby mollies,are they in your main tank as well?


----------



## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I never can understand why there is always so much discussion about whether or not to do water changes during a cycle - with fish. Most people don't want to kill those fish purposely...therefore the focus of the cycle has to shift to keeping the fish safe. If it slows down the cycle it is probably a weeks time added, if that. Frequent water changes to reduce harmful ammonia or nitrites is much, much less stressful to the fish than letting them sit there in the toxic water and doing nothing to help the situation.

If using fish is the way chosen to cycle, then do what is necessary to save them. Save the fish and forget the cycle....and the cycle will still occur.


----------



## Fearmancer (Apr 24, 2011)

I need a bit of correction. I was under the impression that MS was doing 50%+ water changes. Must of been because of the wee hours of the morning. That kind of water changes can add more stress to the fish than the ammonia. 20% or so every other day would work better. I reread my post and I did not mean sacrifice your fish. But if the tank is still cycling then there was probably too many fish to begin with. But frankly he is going through what I went through 8 months or so ago. I lost every one of my original fish. But that was the old way of doing it.


----------



## Moonshadow1 (May 6, 2011)

majerah1 said:


> Sorry things are going so rough for you.If you do indeed lose the fish you have in there now,then I would fishless cycle and then slowly add.The PH is a bit odd,but the most important thing is constant PH.So if its as high as 8.4,as long as it stays there most fish will get along happily in it.However if its swinging from 5.8 to 8.4 within a day,thats when you need to figure out whats up(obviously these are examples of extremes)The baby mollies,are they in your main tank as well?



Yeah.... I don't totally understand the PH thing. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but as long as I've had the tank (about 6-8 wks now) the PH in the tank has always stayed right around 7.5. Have NO idea why the water right out of the tap would be so different though??? I tested the tank today and it was somewhere between 7.2 and 7.6, color wise. 

The baby mollies are in the main tank, but they are kept in a small breeder box thing floating in the main tank (so still in the main tank). So far they seem to be doing very well. I don't currently have any smaller tanks set up for babies or quarantine or anything like that... the babies are about 2 wks old, active and eat well. 






jrman83 said:


> If using fish is the way chosen to cycle, then do what is necessary to save them. Save the fish and forget the cycle....and the cycle will still occur.


If I did it all over again, I doubt I'd do the fish cycle thing, but honestly I really had no idea what I was doing... I THOUGHT I did when I got the fish, but I quickly found out I was wrong... so now I am just trying to prevent them from dying. 





Fearmancer said:


> I need a bit of correction. I was under the impression that MS was doing 50%+ water changes. Must of been because of the wee hours of the morning. That kind of water changes can add more stress to the fish than the ammonia. 20% or so every other day would work better. I reread my post and I did not mean sacrifice your fish. But if the tank is still cycling then there was probably too many fish to begin with. But frankly he is going through what I went through 8 months or so ago. I lost every one of my original fish. But that was the old way of doing it.


I did 50% water changes when the ammonia levels were higher (around 2.0) but now that they do stay lower -- typically I get . 25-.5 readings, I 20 maybe 30% every other day. 

Plus I do use Prime, which detoxifies the ammonia from what I understand???? 

The more I watch the fish, the more I am thinking the main issues are with this male molly picking on the other male and the females. They come out from hiding long enough to eat then go back into hiding. Soon as they come out this other male starts nipping at their tail fins and biting at their sides. I'm not sure what to do??? I don't have another tank to put them in right now, and he just bullies them so much, and I don't think adding a couple more females would be a great idea at this time.... 

The "bully" male and the two platies look great. Don't look stressed or sick or anything, they look very nice and healthy.... very active.


----------



## Moonshadow1 (May 6, 2011)

Would something like this, possibly work for a while (at least while the tank keeps cycling) to keep the bully molly away from the other mollies he likes to chase and nip??? 

Penn Plax aquarium tank divider, have seem them at petco/petsmart.. 

Penn Plax Aquarium Tank Divider at PETCO


----------

