Dead Molly

[lucas68]

When I got up to feed my fish this morning, one of my mollys was dead. He showed no signs of being ill and no marks on his body. The only odd thing about him was his fins were sticking strait out. Any ideas on what killed him or do fish get rigger?

 

[TKOS]

What is your tank setup? Size of tank, water params, feeding sched, other tankmates? How long was he in the tank?

 

[lucas68]

Here's the tank
29 Gal Planted (lots of plants)
1 Black Shark (George)
1 Rainbow Shark (Fred)
2 Bala Sharks (Sammy and Davis)
2 Angels (Bruce and Dorie)
2 Mollies (Molly and Sparkles (was 3 but Dale died))
1 Chinese Algae Eater (Elmo)

Water change this past Sunday. Tested water Monday night Ammonia 0, Nitrites almost 0 (the color was just off the 0 reading), Nitrate 40 (I think), Don't remember the PH, but it was right around the same readings from the last 2 tests.
I do a water change every week (unless my wife has other plans for me). They get a small amount of flake food in the morning and then blood worms or flakes when I get home from work. I got this tank in early December of 2005 and set it up with an existing filter to help get the cycle started quickly (took less than a week with one of the filters from their old tank and some plants). The only change to the tank was the addition of the second bala shark about a week ago. I didn't do the QT thing because I have never had a problem with any fish from my LFS. (ok, I'll get the QT set up tonight before I think of getting a replacement molly.) Any help would be nice. I might just be being a nervous nelly, but I don't want to loose any more fish.

 

[YuccaPatrol]

If all of your other fish are healthy and there are no water quality problems, I wouldn't worry.

Sometimes fish just die. I had a clown loach disappear from one of my aquariums this past month. All the other fish are as healthy as can be and I have no explanation for where it went or what happenned to it. The other clown loaches are just fine and I am just not going to worry about it.

 

[TKOS]

I would be most worried about the over stocking. those fish all have size issues for that siez of tank. Mollies can get huge, angels get huge, sharks are territorial and aggressive to each other and balas really need 100 plus gallon tanks. Even CAE's get rather large and aggressive (10 plus inches). I would not replace the molly.

If there was no visible issues with the molly then it might have just been a sick fish that finally died. They do sometimes die for no visible reason.

 

[budrecki]

TKOS, PLease define huge. Mollies grow to 2-3 inches.

 

[TKOS]

Wow, sorry about that. I was thinking Moors for some reason. Yikes. yes, mollies are a fine fish for a 29 gallon tank. The other fish aren't though, at least not all together and I still wouldn't want to add another fish back in.

 

[lucas68]

I would be most worried about the over stocking. those fish all have size issues for that siez of tank. Mollies can get huge, angels get huge, sharks are territorial and aggressive to each other and balas really need 100 plus gallon tanks. Even CAE's get rather large and aggressive (10 plus inches). I would not replace the molly .

I'm getting a 90gal from a friend that's moving soon and the big guys are going to move into that tank. I thought I was going to have a problem with the agressiveness of most of the fish against the mollys. Turns out that the mollys are the rullers of the tank. The only one that they don't bully around is the black shark (I think it's because he spends most of his time hiding in his little ship).
Thanks for all the info. I hope this was just a single loss. I'm hoping not to loose any fish this year. I know I'll have some losses, but it can't hurt to dream.

 

[test4echo]

i also have had fish that i would see one night, wake up the next morning and they would be gone! They just disapeared without a trace. I have a driftwood formation in the tank and tried moving that around and moving plants and checking everywhere! I couldn't find them anywhere! I even checked around the outside of the tank to see if it hopped out! It happened twice, once with my favorite angel and once with a discus!!!! The discus was just a little guy, maybe only a little more than an inch. He never had a chance. Poor guy! I even named him FABROSO!!