Question of my mollies health

Havent noticed any flashing. I dont remember noticing anything strange about their poo, but ill keep an eye on that. I dont think my fish have ever reacted to the shrimp at all and like i said they were sharing sinking pellets.. so hopefully they wont get eaten when they molt... How often do they molt? I dont think that zeolite and carbon would mess with a bio filter...

i did get a new filter today. I got a aquaclear 20. Its got a sponge, a carbon packet, and this new thing that is supposed to help with the bio-filter.. its like ceramic tubes or something. I figure ill put the carbon in when i insall it, and when i get a chance ill just get another sponge to put in there in place of the carbon.
 
Just did a 3 gallon water cahnge (about 30%). My fish seem to be doing a bit better, but i just tested and this is what i got:

Amonia: 0
nitrite: looks like 1.6 mg/l!!! This is right after i jsut did a water change.
nitrate: inbetween 12.5 and 25 mg/l
GH: 7 (in german hardness)
KH: 6 (also in german hardness)
PH: inbetween 7 and 8. i only have a tetratec wide range ph, and its hard to tell exactly when theres so much space between the ph of the colors.

Alright. For some reason i cant seem to keep nitrites down at all, even doing back to back water changes of almost 50%. What could be causing this? i do have 2 mollies, a cory and 4 ghost shrimp, but youd think i would at least ahve enough bacteria to keep it bellow this level.. And it was way down for that little period of 3 days there, and i hadnt done any water changes around then. Could the bottled spring and distilled water im using have nitrites in it? Anyone know what might be causing this? or is it just normal, and should i keep doing 40-50% water changes daily untill this is done?

Im slightly worried, since i dont really ahve access to usable water untill tommarow. Although i do beleive theyve been exposed to these levels for longer periods of time before, so they shoudl be fine.

any advice is appreciated.
 
Also, im very carfull about washing the test vials out with tap water, and rinsing them in tank water before each test and such. But i noticed with some tests, mainl amonia, it seems to matter how much i rinse it out, a smell of the chemicals still sticks around no mater how much i wash it. Should i be concerned, because ive been taking the vials from washing them with tap water, to dunking them in the tank and swishing thema round.. Is there a chance that some of these chemicals are getting in my tank?

Also, i did notice that my male mollie has had pinkish, somewhat segmented poo hanging off of him for about an hour now.. is this unusual? He is fed ftetramin flake food, a lot of which is pink...
 
Bump.. Just stopped home and tested for nitrites again, got 1.6 mg/l again. ill do a 50% water change today. I hope i dont have a bad batch of biospira, because it doesnt seem to be working. either that or it hasnt startted working yet, but i added it last night.. If not something else is wronge.

My fish do seem to be doing a lot better, i havent noticeed any clamped fins and they are both swimming around like normal... well see what happens i suppose. Anything anyone can think of that might help, feel free to share :P
 
If you live in the US or Canada, and use municipal tap water, it is fine for most fishes. Trying to "fix" the water by adding chemicals or by adding varying amounts of spring or distilled water will stress the fish and cause huge problems.

Keep doing 50% daily water change with tap water treated for chlorine and chloramines. Prime is good.
After the nitrites are zero (tank is cylced) once per week:

*vacuum gravel
*do 30% water change with treated tap water.
*Squeeze out the sponge media in a bucket of old tank water

Only use the sponge media in the aquaclear - and use two of them.

And don't add too many fish:)
 
I dont have tap water. I have well water, and for some reason the soil around my house is all messed up and my water has massive amounts of minirals and metals... It smells of rotten eggs and rusts the sinks almost instantly.... So ive been evry hesitant to use that water, so really my only choice is to use bottled, or buy one of thoes big things that completly filters tap water... if it would even work... I saw this thing at petco, it was a filter thing and a hose, and said that it filtered everything out of tap water, would this work? my well water is VERY bad.

btw, i have only ever used 1 brand of spring water and 1 brand of distilled, so would my fish be used to that?
 
Last edited:
I just did a water change of over 50 percent and im STILL testing nitrites at around 1.6 mg/l. Its the same color as before, maybe a little lower. Does how much you stir the gravel up effect how much nitrite is removed?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom