Molly Died Something Coming Out Of It...but Not Fry?

[MommyOf3Boys]

Hi
 
We are farely new to fish keeping. We have a 38 gallon tank that HAD 5 gold mollies, 2 silver mollies, 1 marble molly, 2 emerald catfish, 3 bleeding heart tetras and one japanese algea eating shrimp. We set it up back in early April. Tank has been cycled and stable, no water issues.
 
We had one silver molly that appeared over the past few weeks to be getting bloated, and we thought she might be pregnant. Although we purposely skipped a day a feeding the fish about a week back after reading it could be bloating from over eating, and she did seem to look a little slimmer, so we were wondering if she was really pregnant.
 
She showed no signs of illness. Swimming activly, and eating a lot. She was actually quite aggressive with the other mollies for food, another reason we thought she was pregnant. I did see her on many occassions pooping, which relieved my worry that it was constipation. She never really got bigger, just stayed slightly bloated.
 
We found her this morning stuck to the filter.   She had something coming out of her back end, my husband tried to look. (I could not stomach to sqeeze her and see what it was, but the little I saw I though maybe intestines? Would a filter be strong enough to do that?
 
He said it didn't look like fry. We have never had a fry, but we live near an aquarium with a molly tank and they occassional have fry, and last time we actually had the chance to see what appeared to be very new fry, so we know what to look for. (I can't believe how small they are!
 
Anyway, he said it didn't look like fry, but whatever it was, it stunk! He wrapped the molly up and threw her away.
 
I checked the water and despite the water having been cycled and not having any issues in over a month, the ammonia is at 1.0 ! I'm wondering if this is because we had a fish dead in the tank over night (not sure how long, she was alive and showing NO signs of illness last night).
 
I'm worried we had some type of ammonia spike and it killed her? Or maybe she had stuff coming out of her because other fish were picking at her after she died?
 
We have to work now on getting the ammonia down, so it seems we'll be doing a water change, I guess we'll do a 50%...
 
Just wondering if anyone has any idea what might have happened with that molly?

 

[the_lock_man]

Can I ask how you cycled the tank?
 
A single dead fish wouldn't, IMO, raise ammonia in a 38 gallon tank by 1ppm, so I would say that you already had high ammonia, and it's likely that this is what did for the female. You don't say what your mix of genders is, but assuming that there were males in the LFS tank, even if you don't have males yourself, she would still be pregnant. The fact that you have not seen fry means either that they've all been eaten by the other fish, or that the stress of high ammonia caused problems.

 

[MommyOf3Boys]

We cycled in fish in because we did the beginners move of asking the pet strore which said as long as we run the tank for 48 hours emtpy we are fine

 And we originally had 4 silver mollies, but when 2 died a few days into the tank being set up, I did some googling and realized that we were now cycling the tank...fish in. We did not lose any other fish until today. We noticed a few weeks ago we finally had our ammonia levels down to 0 and the water cleared up. We did notice that the water looked a little cloudy this morning. I also forgot to add that a few days ago, we took out the fake plants (there are other decorations in there) and began to switch to live plants. I didn't want to add a lot at once, as we would eventually like to have the tank heavily planted, but for now we added 5 tall plants (approx 6" high) one medium plant (approx 4") and two small grass like plants.
 
We were not told anything about the gender mix of fish from good ol' persmart again, but after getting home and reading, it appears that the marble molly is male and the two silvers that were left were female. He actually spent the frist few weeks chasing them so much we thought we might have to take him out, but he stopped and shortly after the one silve molly started getting fat, so that was another reason we thought she was pregnant. We have not seen any chasing behavoir in the gold mollies. THey seem to keep to themselves while the mable and silvers stick together. We have not been able to tellthe gender of the gold mollies.
 
I have not checked the ammonia of the tank in about a week. I stopped checking it frequently when it seemed to be cycled and all was well. I have not noticed any odd behavoir in the fish either.
C
ould the live plants have caused an issue?

 

[DoubleDutch]

Could be a camallanus-worm coming out.

 

[the_lock_man]

It could be that there was some gunk in the substrate that got disturbed when you took out the plastic plants, which might have caused the ammonia spike.
 
Dutch could also be right that the ammonia is red herring, and that there was a worm.
 
Is nitrite also down to 0?

 

[MommyOf3Boys]

I do not have an test strips left for the nitrite or nitrate. I use the liquid tester for ammonia as I have hear this is more accurate, but I have not been able to find a liquid tester for the other levels. I figured I'd pick up more in the next few days, since I did not think havok was going to ensue in the tank. I will likely be heading out later today and will pick up some more.
 
Since this morning, The tetras and catfish are fine. Swimming and eating like all is good.
 
ALL the mollies are not. None of they ate this morning

 
2 gold mollies and the marble are at the top of the tank around the heater, the two gold mollies up there have what I would think are long poops coming from them. They look like poop with some clear parts, they don't look like a worm but then again I'm not sure. I did google pics and I don't  *think* they are worms.
 
The other gold mollies are at the bottom of the tank either hiding in the plants or just in the gravel, its hard to see if they have anything coming out of their butts because they are laying on the rocks.
 
It took me about 20 minutes to find the remain silver molly, she is in a coral house we have (which she does not hide in normally), and laying in the gravel in there. She is in there in such a way that I can only see her head, and cannot get a view of her bottom.
 
If this were worms would they really all happen in one day like this? As I'm typing this some of the gold mollies from the bottom are swimming up and perking up a little..
 
 
 
I went to watch them, it looks a few of the mollies are pooping, this mostly clear string, others are not. 3 of the gold ones seems to be "ok", I dropped in A flake of food and the 3 went for it like they were ok. The others did not. The marble molly is starting to swim around and the silver one has moved deeper into the coral house, I cannot see her at all.
 
 
I am now thinking of EVERTHING we did that might cause this. Also about a week ago we bought those frozen cubes of brine shrimp, and gave a cube to the tank to eat. Could there have been something in there? It was frozen. I have not given them anyother cubes of it since (I planned to do it  once a week).  Would they have an issue this fast?
 
It seems 3 of the gold mollies are swimming around, not vigorously but ok. One is up at the heater and one laying in the rocks.
 
If this is some kind of worms, would the tetras and catfish be at risk? They seem fine.
 
Its like overnight all the mollies got sick

I also wanted to add, before today, we did a 50% water change Saturday night.

 

[MommyOf3Boys]

Ok spoke with my husband (he left for work after this mornings events) that he changed the filter on Saturday night too. I hadn't realized it since often when we do water changes we are both doing various tasks for both tanks (we also have a goldfish tank that we've had for about a year). I am thinking maybe this has caused the tank to mini cycle again. Maybe explaining the ammonia?
 
As of now only the mollies are having issues. They are all laying on the gravel. The rest of the fish are fine. Also, I have been reading a pH of around 7.0 or a bot higher. I haven't tested our pH in over a month or so, but the times I have tested it, it always comes out at 6.0.
 
I have read that this might contribute to them not being as hardy. Not sure??

 

[misterpro]

What do you mean by "changed the filter" ?  Never ever replace your filter media (unless they are literally falling apart, and even then only small portions at a time) whatever the filters manual says, because that's where your good bacteria live.  Do you still have a ammonia reading now?
 
About the PH, mollies actually prefer a ph between 7 - 8.5, so if it's still at very low 6's then yes, they won't like that very much.  However don't buy a chemical to change your ph it's very tricky to keep it stable.  ph swinging back and forth is worse than it being a bit "wrong" imho.
 
The frozen brine shrimp should be fine.  I recommended that you defrost a cube in some tank water, instead of throwing the frozen cube in.

 

[MommyOf3Boys]

I will check the ammonia again this evening, I just want to give a quick reply that I while I have read in forums not to change the filter insert, its one of those bag ones with the "rocks" inside, theres no sponge, my husband keeps saying that the instructions say to do change it and that it was very gunked up. He also described the things coming out of the molly and said he really thinks it was intestines, not worms and not fry as said. We think maybe another fish was picking at the molly after death?? Will follow up tonight or tomorrow, and after new ammonia level is taken. I'm thinking we are cycling the tank again basically,,,ugh...