Help poor Molly

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Drevidsten

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I have 6 fish in a 10 gallon tank, used to be 7, but one of the 2 black mollies died in January. Molly, the 1 left, seemed to go through a little depression, staying in the back hidden on the bottom behind plants, she went through times of doing it for days, but coming up to eat. She had seemed to be doing better, I made a big deal of talking to her at feeding times, and being excited! Well now she's down there again, all the time, doesn't come up when I feed, nothing, it's been a few weeks. This week after paying better attention, I think maybe one of the black skirt tetras, who's larger, is being a bully maybe, because they all seem to stay in the back corner a lot, while he swims around. My roommates think I'm crazy, any thoughts? Can fish be that involved? I don't think Molly is dying, it's been going on long enough that I think it would have happened already
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Yes fish can pick on each other and bullies beat up other fish in the tank. There doesn't have to be physical interaction between them and quite often it is only a slight fin movement that can stress another fish.

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How often do you do water changes and how much water do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?
Do you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank?

What sort of filter do you have?
How often do you clean the filter and how do you clean it?

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What is the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and GH of the tank water (in numbers)?
Mollies need a pH above 7.0 and a GH around 250ppm.
Tetras come from water with a pH below 7.0 and a GH below 150ppm.
If there is not enough minerals in the water, the mollies will struggle to survive.

The GH and pH can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

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Any chance of a picture and short 20 second video of the fish?
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Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until we work out what is wrong. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.
 
Hello, and welcome to the forum! :hi:

Yes, as @Colin_T said, fish can be bullies to each other. May we please see a picture, or a short video of the tank? Thank you! :)

(Please consider voting for the July POTM contest!) :)
 
@Colin_T posted a lot of useful pointers. This one may be crucial - you would not normally expect to find mollies and tetras in the same tank. It would be helpful if you could post those results.

Mollies need a pH above 7.0 and a GH around 250ppm.
Tetras come from water with a pH below 7.0 and a GH below 150ppm.
If there is not enough minerals in the water, the mollies will struggle to survive.
 
And just my looking at what @Colin_T said, Molly’s and Tetras can’t live in the same tank, right? :)
 
And just my looking at what @Colin_T said, Molly’s and Tetras can’t live in the same tank, right? :)
Most tetras come from soft acid water. There are a couple of species that come from harder water but for the most part, mollies (and other livebearers) should be kept in tanks with hard water, and tetras should be kept in soft water.
 
So essentially they can’t be kept together? :)
 
So essentially they can’t be kept together? :)
You can keep them together but chances are, one will thrive and the other will struggle and eventually die prematurely due to incorrect water chemistry.

If you have soft water, the livebearers will struggle and eventually die before they should.
If you have hard water, the livebearers will do well but the tetras will struggle and die prematurely.
 

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