Ntd?

[sarah40011]

maybe a month ago i bought two albino corys to join my existing one, one of the new ones didnt swim or eat or hardly move, two days later he was dead on the bottom with most of his face chewed off. who by i dont know but my tetras swim in that area generally. after that two of my neons have become very very fat with bent backs, then a week later my pregnant molly had a miscarriage where her uterus came out with eggs and live babies (25 surviving well) she bled to death during the birth, then 5 days later my male molly who has been hiding away on his own shows up with every scale sticking out and a swollen belly. he is now passed this morning one of my neon tetras has gone almost white and two of my glow light tetras are looking very fat. i am upset because my other half has always said a quarantine tank is not necessary. i hope he changes his mind now. water quality (he does it i dont know how will look into it) is always good, 20 % water change every two weeks. i have 3 speckled corys, 2 albino corys, 5 cherry shrimp, 10 assassin snails, 7 neon tetras, 5 glow light tetras and 5 black tetras plus the 25-odd week old babies. (live plants) the fish have all been treated for white spot which seems to have gone and i have an antibacterial medicine ordered. please help why do i have such a sick tank? tank 14 inch wide 31 inch long and 14 inch deep (how many gallons this is i dont know) tank was a surprise gift and i have been thrown into the deep end a bit

 

[Lolly123]

You say that water quality is not an issue, to be fair this does not give us any ideal at all of your water parameters.
We need to know in numbers ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH and temp to be able to give us an idea of whats going on.
Just as importantly we need to know what you are testing with, if you are testing with the strips then they are notoriously inaccurate. To be safe in the knowledge that you are getting better and more reliable readings a good liquid test kit is an essential, for example API are used by a lot of members here and are generally recommended.

Did you cycle the tank? Are you aware of what cycling a tank involves and how the nitrogen cycle works? I'm not trying to patronise you but I have to ask these questions to get an idea of your setup and how you went about adding fish. If you dont know what it is have a read about fish-in cycling because I have a feeling that is what you are dealing with right now.

I'm not exactly sure how many gallons, and I could be wrong as i'm not working off a calculator but im guessing in litres, possibly around 80- 90L - I could be off here so its best to check how many gallons or litres your tank holds. If that is the case, in my opinion those 25 babies are just going to make your problem worse, I feel you've got far too many fish in there. What type of filtration is running on the tank?

Bad water quality can be a massive contribution towards sick fish....If i were you, you need to buy a good test kit if you dont already have one and commence water changes. If you get readings for ammonia and nitrite, you need to get them down and anything over 0.25 is not okay. I would also highly recommend re-homing those babies, and not adding anymore fish. I would advise against getting live bearers unless you have somewhere to house the fry.

Disease and treatment is not my game so I will let someone else advise as to what to do and if you need to do anything to your tank being that it seems to be overrun with disease.

 

[sarah40011]

You say that water quality is not an issue, to be fair this does not give us any ideal at all of your water parameters.
We need to know in numbers ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH and temp to be able to give us an idea of whats going on.
Just as importantly we need to know what you are testing with, if you are testing with the strips then they are notoriously inaccurate. To be safe in the knowledge that you are getting better and more reliable readings a good liquid test kit is an essential, for example API are used by a lot of members here and are generally recommended.

Did you cycle the tank? Are you aware of what cycling a tank involves and how the nitrogen cycle works? I'm not trying to patronise you but I have to ask these questions to get an idea of your setup and how you went about adding fish. If you dont know what it is have a read about fish-in cycling because I have a feeling that is what you are dealing with right now.

I'm not exactly sure how many gallons, and I could be wrong as i'm not working off a calculator but im guessing in litres, possibly around 80- 90L - I could be off here so its best to check how many gallons or litres your tank holds. If that is the case, in my opinion those 25 babies are just going to make your problem worse, I feel you've got far too many fish in there. What type of filtration is running on the tank?

Bad water quality can be a massive contribution towards sick fish....If i were you, you need to buy a good test kit if you dont already have one and commence water changes. If you get readings for ammonia and nitrite, you need to get them down and anything over 0.25 is not okay. I would also highly recommend re-homing those babies, and not adding anymore fish. I would advise against getting live bearers unless you have somewhere to house the fry.

Disease and treatment is not my game so I will let someone else advise as to what to do and if you need to do anything to your tank being that it seems to be overrun with disease.

you are not patronising me you are completely right. i do have strip test and will be investing in the test you mentioned. my strips show (bear with me, my first time testing, my other half does it)
N03-25
N02-0
GH-16d
KH-15d
PH-8
Cl2-0
temp 75.
i keep my babies until they are a month old them they go to the store. i didnt choose mollys and i wont be getting anymore altho i did love having them. the tank was cycled, my other half set it all up and i think we waited about 6 weeks before we got fish.

 

[Lolly123]

Mollys are cute, but as you know and I know from having mollys, they produce like wildfire lol

The results don't include ammonia (NH3), so I am glad you're going to get the liquid test kit Although you cant test for ammonia right now I would keep up with some regular water changes, especially until you can take the little babies to the store.. In regards to the water changes, I have a 250L tank and I change about 30L of water every other day. I find that I prefer this to doing a 50% change every week. Everyone has different methods, but as long as you ensure you keep the water quality as best you can it might make things a bit easier. I think as long as you dechlor and try and temp match the water to your tank you should be fine with carrying out these water changes. I also try to ensure that I feed in small amounts, making sure that all the food has been eaten, if it hasn't, I vacuum out the left over bits so that they don't rot and mess with my water quality.

I hope that someone can advise you in regards to the disease, being that you have fry in the tank, i'm not totally sure if the meds will affect them or what your best course of action will be. I won't say anything further on the disease because I don't want to pretend I know when I don't.

If your other half waited six weeks before adding fish it sounds like he did a fishless cycle, which is always a good thing in my book.

 

[karin]

I'm not an expert but try to help out in this section. This sounds like Dropsy. See...

http/www.aboutfishonline.com/articles/dropsy.html

 

[sarah40011]

Mollys are cute, but as you know and I know from having mollys, they produce like wildfire lol

The results don't include ammonia (NH3), so I am glad you're going to get the liquid test kit Although you cant test for ammonia right now I would keep up with some regular water changes, especially until you can take the little babies to the store.. In regards to the water changes, I have a 250L tank and I change about 30L of water every other day. I find that I prefer this to doing a 50% change every week. Everyone has different methods, but as long as you ensure you keep the water quality as best you can it might make things a bit easier. I think as long as you dechlor and try and temp match the water to your tank you should be fine with carrying out these water changes. I also try to ensure that I feed in small amounts, making sure that all the food has been eaten, if it hasn't, I vacuum out the left over bits so that they don't rot and mess with my water quality.

I hope that someone can advise you in regards to the disease, being that you have fry in the tank, i'm not totally sure if the meds will affect them or what your best course of action will be. I won't say anything further on the disease because I don't want to pretend I know when I don't.

If your other half waited six weeks before adding fish it sounds like he did a fishless cycle, which is always a good thing in my book.

sadly he does have the opinion that they are 'just fish' so i will be taking full control of fish care from now on because to me its very upsetting when they get sick and my male molly was so fancy looking its a real shame. im hoping its false neon tetra disease and the meds will be ok to use.

 

[Lolly123]

I think it's good that you have taken on the responsibility of caring for the fish, unfortunately too many people have a similar attitude, which begs the question why anyone of that mindset would even want a tank if they are 'just fish'. But a sincere well done to you for taking the time to research and do your best.

As for the disease, yes it does sound like dropsy. I'm sure that you will get all the advice that you could possibly get from the experienced people on this forum. I have found this place very helpful and very friendly.

Good luck.