Vyper said:
I'd personally add some salt to your tank, Mollies desire if not need some salt in the water and most molly problems get much better if not disappear when you add salt, go for the ratio 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons. And to be perfectly honnest unless your water levels are going crazy I think 2 daily water changes of 40% seems a lot, are you treating the new water you add ?. How far is your tank from finishing its cycle ?
That's a popular myth. Mollies neither desire nor need salt in their tanks. And, if you are suggesting regular Freshwater or Aquarium salt (NaCl) then you really don't understand how the salt is supposed to help. In truth, mollies do well in hard, alkaline water. You could add plain NaCl to soft water and it would not do anything at all to help a molly out.
Additionally, twice daily 40% water changes is alot, but she is cycling her tanks and showing .25 Ammonia, which is well into the toxic range. As to how far a tank is from finishing a cycle, how is she supposed to predict that? The truth is that there are so many variables in a cycle like temperature, amount of seeding material, pH crashes etc that it is really hard to predict the length of one.
Please don;t give advice based on anecdotal evidence that might be dangerous to somenoe's pets. There is a wealth of scientific and well researched information out there just for the asking. In fact, follow this
link to Robert T. Ricketts' (he goes by RTR here on the boards) article about the salt myth. Here's a
link to the Skeptical Aquarist, a very decent site loaded with information. Salt, contrary to popular belief is a stressor for fish. It does not soothe them. Why stress already injured fish, especially those doubly stressed because they are going through the pains of cycling as well?