don't know what's wrong with mollie

[shadow]

i just noticed this morning that one of my two silver mollies is just laying at the bottom of the tank. it occasionally just dropped to the ground and layed there then got back up. it's the strangest behavior i've seen. the other one is fine swimming around and such. before this, i never had any problem, yesterday he was fine.

i have a 10 gal tank with a pleco, plattie, betta, 2 silver mollies and one black mollie. the ammonia is near 0 but i know that the nitrites are high, so i did a 25% water change already.

any help greatly appreciated. thanks.

 

[tstenback]

keep doing the water changes daily. What are the nitrite readings?

it occasionally just dropped to the ground

this may be an indication of a swim bladder problem or a fish that is very stressed, so watch this one closely. Dont add any more fish until the nitrites have settled down. HTH

 

[angel_eyes0857]

your tank sounds a bit like mine.
I have a 10 gallon tank with two platties,one silver molly and a male betta. my nitrite is also quite high. i have been doing a lot of water changes.. just started and i hope to see the levels go down soon. keep an eye on your water testing and make sure no more fish are added.
one of my silver mollies used to "play dead"... i don't konw how many times i brought the fish net to the tank and was about to scoop him out, thinking i had lost him... but then he would swim away from the tank. this was when i had my 3 gallon tank so i knew my fish were overcrowded... i gave my "dead playing" molly to my boyfriends tank and he died just a week or so after.
i'm not sure if that had to do with his behaviour but keep an eye on it and do a water change every day until levels go down.

 

[shadow]

he seems to be doing fine now, he occasionally sits in the corner by himself for a while. the nitrites are at 5.0, ammonia .25, nitrate 5.0

i have no plans to add more fish since, i think 6 is enough
i hope that it's nothing serious. he's swimming with the others and eating so i guess that's a good sign. watching water conditions closely. thanks for the help

 

[tstenback]

the nitrites are way too high for these guys. I would do a 50% water change right away. Then tomorrow do the same thing. The nitrite level when cycling with fish should be kept around 1ppm. Once you get it down then go back to the 15-25% changes until the cycle is finished. HTH