The Majority of my fish have died ' tips on how to save the rest...!

Welcome, Flaire. It usually takes about a month for your cycle to completely kick in and take care of the ammonia. I can pretty much guarantee that's what's causing the deaths, it's very toxic. To save the remaining fish you'll need to perform water changes daily if need be. It's a lot more work than fishless cycling, but no need to remove your sand, and definitely don't change your filter cartridge during the process. You should also get a test kit which will show how toxic the water is and how much to change. Keep us posted, we'll walk you through it.

If you can't get a test kit at the local pet stores, then you may have to order one online. The best one is the API master test kit for freshwater, which is a liquid test kit. I am quite sure it is the cycling of the tank that is causing your fish loss. There is not much you can do about it, except test the water (when you have a test kit), and do water changes. If you are doing a cycle with fish, you may even have to do daily water changes until the cycle has completed. On the bright side, you should be nearing the end of your cycle if the tank was set up around Christmas time. With such a small tank, you won't have room for a lot of fish. When the cycle has completed, your female molly would appreciate it if you got another female so the male has at least two females to chase around. That way she can get a break sometimes. But, that and the babies they create will probably fill up the tank.

Emily

Hi Flaire, welcome to AC~!

please understand none of the following is intended as a criticism of either you or the people who gave you the tank and fish. You obviously had nothing to do with the planning,and chances are the people who did were simply not fishkeepers themselves and going on either the advise of the place they bought from, or the pictures on the packaging of the tank, which notoriously show great huge numbers of fish in the tank to attract buyers.

But the fact is that 10 fish the size of mollies in an 8 or 9 gallon tank are too many by a factor of at least three. I have kept mollies in the past and would say the maximum number of adults for a tank that size are, as eosepr says above, about three. If both genders are present yes, you are going to have babies in large numbers but that is not a problem assuming you sell or otherwise remove them on a regular basis.

But putting 10 fish that size into a brand new non-cycled tank simply means that most of them are going to die before the bacteria level can climb to the level required to cycle the ammonia levels that number is going to generate. It is possible to do fish-in cycling without harm to the inhabitants with sufficient daily water changes until the bacteria levels climb...but you did not know that. Again, we all started somewhere and you did the best you could with the circumstances you were dealt.

Going forward....as noted above a liquid test kit is best but the dunk-strips are vastly better than nothing at all. People criticize them for inaccuracy but imho a new package of strips does a perfectly adequate job. The problem comes as the package is opened repeatedly and exposed to air and humidity, which does decrease their accuracy. You are going to be using them up at a sufficient rate this is unlkely to be a long term problem. It will buy time for you to find a supplier for the liquid test, which, while more expensive upfront, is much more economical over the long term.

Darwin never sleeps, as the saying goes. The weak (meaning more sensitive to water quality) are gone and you are now down to the strongest fish from your original batch, and the tank should be approaching the bacterial level to handle the existing bioload for the long term. I am sorry you had such a rough learning curve in your initial exposure to fishkeeping but I think it is safe to say you are well past the worst of it now. Keep up with the water changes until testing can confirm it but you have the basis of a good long term tank going now.

stay in touch and let us know how things progress. best wishes.

Hi Flaire,
I've kept Mollies several times over the years - but I've only placed them into well-established tanks (a little algae is a good sign that it can handle mollies). The water you are adding/changing - well water/city water? I'm fortunate enough to have well water - no chlorine or other nasty stuff, and I run water through a Spectrapure RO system before adding to my aquariums (it seems to establish a cycle quickly). You likely know you need to de-chlorinate the water if it is treated tap water. Have water already set aside to do your next several water changes - I bought 8 gallons of distilled water years ago and saved the containers for storing water. Lastly, if you get two or three to stay alive, that's about the limit for the size of aquarium you have for fish the size of mollies. If you look for fish to add to this aquarium in the future and you want variety, look for about 5 or 6 fish that won't grow more than an inch or so.
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