Molly dead! :-(

[Nuttygal! :0)]

Last night I kept hearing the filter making a strange noise, like it was grinding something up, but I couldn't see anything wrong with it and I hadn't noticed anything wrong with any of my fishies. Anyway I couldn't see it properly because the lights were off. The filter kept me awake for ages that night and in the morning when the lights came on I saw one of my beautiful mollies - dead! I was a black dalmation molly, but she had turned white, she had no head, and she had chunks bitten out of her and bones and bits of flesh and skin hanging off of her! My poor molly! I also have a male, but him and all the rest of my other fishies are fine! I did a water change the day before and all the levels are ok. Does anyone have any idea of what may have caused her dying? She did not show any signs of illnesses, and if it was something in the water then other fish would have died too wouldn't they? My male molly was very lonely and kept trying to chase himself around in the mirror! Ah, bless! I did think that she might have died from stress if the male was chasing her, but they've been fine together for months. I went and bought a female chocolate coloured molly for him so he wasn't so lonely!
Thanks in advance if anyone can help!
Sorry it was a mega-long post!

 

[boozybears]

Sorry to hear about your molly!

Just a quick word of advice... it's best to have at least 2 females for every male molly. This prevents the females from getting too stressed from the males 'attention' I learned the hard way too, but once I got a few more everyone was quite happy and stressfree (espcially Howard my male dalmation molly!! )

Val

 

[jflowers]

I don't know why the molly died, how long had you had her?, what are the water perameters?

The filter noise would suggest an air lock in the filter maybe? Is it an external or internal? Do you have any airstones near it that could be putting air into the filter? My filters make a grinding noise if they are not bled properly (external) or too close to an airstone (internal & external).

Jon

 

[sylvia]

What size tank and what other fish are in there? I can't think of what could have done so much damage to her...

 

[Nuttygal! :0)]

I don't have any fishies that would do any damage to her 4 tiger barbs, 4 cherry barbs, 5 harlequins, 2 zebra danios, 5 platys, 1 ruby shark, 2 dwarf cichlids, 5 bristlenosed catfish, 2 clown loaches, 2 mollies. I had had the female molly for about 6 months.
Jon - I do have an air stone but it is at the other end of the tank and I have never had any problems with it before.
The tank is roughly 2'x3'.
Val - I did think I should keep two females as they are livebearers but I wasn't sure...
Thanks for all your replies!

 

[jflowers]

Only air stones near the filter would cause any problems. The barbs would eat any dead fish so they are the culprits for the bits missing from your dead fish. I would doubt that they killed it though. Your danios, you need five+ as they are schooling fish and are aggresive when kept below that number. What size is your tank? I ask because you have two clown loaches and they need a huge tank (they grow to around 12" and need to be kept in groups) a 3' x 2' is not enough IMO. Sounds like your molly died of natural causes and your other fish did there job. Can you measure your tank and give us LxWxH.

Jon