Black Molly-Strange disease

Latvian

Latvian

AC Members
Sep 22, 2005
49
0
6
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Connecticut
Hi there...

It's now like 45 days since I started my freshwater 10G. I had 5 tetras and just yesterday added 3 mollies and a neon tetra.

Today morning one of the mollies died and the neon tetra died. I went to the pet store from where I got the new fishes and did a test for the water tank and it seems that I have a high nitrite rate. (the tube turned dark purple).

After that the other molly (Black molly) started to act really strange and gradully a white spot grew on its body and its fin started dissolving ! The black molly stayed in the lower corner of the tank for the whole day, with a very little movement and strange breathing. Sometimes it just lays her body on the gravel.

After learning that I had a high nitrite level in my tank, I changed like 33% of the water and did an extensive gravel vaccuming, but it seems it didn't work.

Is it a kind of a disease ? Could it be becasue of the high nitrite rate ?

Need your advices and suggestions.

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mollies don't acclimate well to tanks that aren't established. take it back to the store if it survives that long, otherwise it will most likely just die off.
 
Looks like possible burns from high nitrates / ammonia. Finish cycling your tank first and buy a water testing kit.
 
yeah, i think you should take the rest of the fish back and start over. not only will it give you time to cycle the tank and make it safe, you will also be able to do more research on what fish to have in your tank. mollies get bigger than people expect, over three inches for older ones, and need a larger tank than a 10g.
 
its all secondary problems to the nitrite, which is high because the beneficial bacterial colonies have not established yet.

options :

fish cycle :

get a full test kit (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate). test twice daily and do water changes (with conditioner - Prime is great) whenever it shows higher than .25 ppm. Repeat until ammonia & nitrite are 0 and nitrate is slowly increasing. you are now cycled and can move to weekly changes of at least 25% to keep nitrate below 20 ppm.

fishless cycle :

return fish to shop and cycle without fish. check out the sticky on this.

if you are thinking of keeping the fish, be honest with yourself about the regime. you will probably do at least daily changes and it could take 4 - 6 weeks to cycle the tank, although I would think less (more like 3 -4) because you already have nitrite showing. also, be prepared to lose fish, in particular as you already have sick ones.
 
I don't know what just happened. I changed like 33% of the water for 3 days in a row, then after one day of the last water change, I did a test for the Ammonia and Nitrite and the concentrations are zero !

I think the bacteria has established in my tank and now I have a fully cycled tank.

Thank you all for your help.
 
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