Dead Mollies...in Two Days

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DarknessArises

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Okay, so I just got 2 mollies from Pet Supplies Plus on Sunday (4/21/13) and they have both died.  One was stuck to the filter and was not right for awhile and died 20 minutes later after I removed him from the filter.  The other one was dead the next morning.  I'm having my water checked but why did the first one get stuck to the filter?  It is not a strong suction and other fish are just fine.  Please help me as I am new to the aquarium hobby,  Thanks.
~DarknessArises 
 
Have you "cycled" your tank?
Did you use a dechlorinator when adding the tap water?
Are the other fish in the tank visibly healthy?
How long has the tank been set up for?
How big is the tank?
 
The tank has been cycled and has been set up for about 2 weeks.  The other fish include a kuhli loach and bumblebee catfish and they appear fine.  It is a 10 gallon tank and i did not use a dechlorinator.
 
I would strongly reccommend a dechlorinator. It removes chlorine that is present in tap water, as it can damage the fishs' slime coat, and removes heavy metals and chloramines. How did you go about introducing the 2 mollies to the tank?
 
Okay I will do that.  I brought them home in the bag and let the bag sit in the tank water for 30 minutes.  I gently caught the fish with a net and let them go in the tank.  Once in the tank they appeared curious and active.  They even ate a little bit.  All was fine until the one got stuck on the filter.  
 
I can only assume that either the fish were ill when you bought them or died due to the stress of introducing them to the tank. Post the results of the water test on here and keep an eye on the other fish =D
 
Hopefully you'll pop back and read this. Unfortunately, you've made a couple of basic errors - but don't feel too bad, you're not the first, and you won't be the last.
 
Firstly, you need to understand the nitrogen cycle. In a nutshell, fish produce ammonia as a waste product. This is toxic. If left, the fish will poison themselves. In your filter, and on your gravel, a colonies of bacteria will grow which feed on that ammonia, and turn it into another substance called nitrite. This is also toxic. So, another set of bacteria will grow, which will turn the nitrite into nitrate. This isn't toxic in low quantities, and you control it, by reguarly changing water.
 
Your fish died because it was poisoned by its own ammonia. Your tank has not had a chance to grow those bacteria colonies. The reason the fish stuck to the filter was because it was dying. Healthy fish don't get stuck to the filter, yours did so because it was too weak to swim away.
 
The second error was that mollies are too big for a 10gallon tank. They produce a lot of ammonia, and the concentration built up quickly because it's a small tank.
 
What you should have done is to regularly monitor the ammonia and nitrite levels, at least daily, and in your case probably twice-daily, and then changed enough water to keep those two toxins down to negligible levels.
 
Now that you have an empty tank, you can do what's called a fishless cycle. This entails adding bottled ammonia to simulate fish, it allows the bacteria to grow without poisoning any fish. Once you've got that underway, we can advise you on fish that you would like that are suitable for a small tank like yours.
 

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