FishQueen55

I'm having a little problem with my aquarium water....I woke up this morning and found my little black molly dead that I had been raising since birth. I tested my water and had these results: pH- 7.4 (I always have had a high Ph, it's in the water) ammonia- .25 nitrate- 5.0 Nitrites- .25

I just did a water change a few days ago and changed my media ( I left a little of the old media in it). I use the carbon and ammonia diamond blend media. Just trying to give you an idea of everything I did to see if I did anything wrong.

Yesterday when I observed the fish he was acting a little sluggish and hanging out on the bottom sometimes laying on the gravel. He acted like he was struggling to swim against the water current.

Maybe somebody could tell me something? If anything is there anything I can do to change my water conditions. Not so much my PH, because it is always a little high, but any info on the Nitrates, Nitrites, and Ammonia would be really helpful.
The little guy was like a kid to me, I found him one day under some decorations and almost sucked him up in the vacuum. I had never seen a fry before, so I scooped him up and put him in a nursery and raised him. So he was kind of special. Now I have 11 lil babies I'm about to let loose in my big tank so it's kind of an emergency about my water and stuff. I don't want nothing to happen to them Thanks.

capekate

Hi fishqueen
It looks to me that you put your tank into a mini cycle when you changed out the filter media. Even keeping a little bit of the old, may not have been enough. Did you by chance also vacuum the gravel at the same time?
Your PH is fine for your fish, and I agree, I would not mess with that. Your other readings show that there are toxins present in the water and it looks like that is what killed your fish. Your other fish run the chance as well, so I would do daily water changes of at least 40-50% and add a ammonia detox product such as prime with the daily water changes. It will not remove the ammonia but it will convert it so that it is not harmful to the fish for 24 hours, that is why the daily water changes are necessary at this time. I believe if you do this asap your other fish hopefully will be fine. Unless some are already poisoned by the toxins, but the immediate watar change should help them.
Best of luck and sorry to hear about your little molly.

Beeker

I agree with CapeKate. Your tank may be recycling. How old is your tank? In your info, it says that you don't know about the cycle, or is that outdated? Ammonia and NitrItes should be zero, and the NitrAtes should be below 15.

Drew 43920

Your Aquarium Info says you have 38 fish in a 55 gallon tank. Is that right ?