melfrany

Hello everybody,

I have about a year of experience in fish keeping. Like many of you, I was so excited with my new tank that I bought my first fish right the way and then I've learned about the nitrogen cycle. Unfortunately, my first 2 fish died.
I've decided not to give up. I studied how to do the fishless cycle and I was very successful. Only after my aquarium was cycled I bought 3 little baloon mollies and placed them on my 20 gallon.
I check my water parameters frequently. I clean my aquarium regularly. I only had a problem with my pH about 2 weeks ago which I came to the website and got some nice advice on how to proceed with it.
Yesterday, I've got home after 6pm and I looked at 1 of my mollies and she had her belly a little swollen with the scales a little up. I now this is probably dropsy. I immediately, set up my quarantine aquarium, using the filter media I always have saved inside my main aquarium filter in case of an emergency. I researched and decided to put her in the quarantine tank with the recommended dosage of Kanaplex. She did not want to eat, otherwise I would have most likely treated her with the tetracycline gel tek I have on my freezer.
This morning she was swimming around the tank. Anyways, I took the measurement and the water was fine, but this afternoon when I've got home she had died.
I really don't know what did I do wrong...She was perfect, looking healthy and like always ferociously hungry just the day before...

I always take care of the water parameters, also the water temperature is always stable.
My water is treated with Prime. I use a little salt on the water.
I cleaned regularly. The PH sometimes changes and I don't know why. The tests I perform regularly are:
My ammonia is 0.0
nitrite 0.0
nitrate around 10.0
ph around 7.0 (about 2 weeks ago, when I measured my ph was lower than 6.2)

Well, she is gone and I'm very sad.

funkman262

Do you have anything in the tank that might affect your pH such as shells or driftwood?

And I've had similar problems with balloon mollies. From what I've read, it's best to stay away from them because of their irregular body shape that puts them at a disadvantage in the tank. Apparently they don't occur in nature with that body shape (they're bread to look that way). They're also very prone to swim badder disease which is how mine died (tried treating with peas but didn't work). Sorry I kind of went off on a tangent like that.

Lucy

I'm so sorry. Sometimes these things just happen even with the best care.

Zenial

If I recall correctly, when relocating fish, the transaction stress can cause death in up to 48 hours. Though, this is very unlikely because you obviously know what you're doing.

As lucy said, sometimes these things just happen, sorry for your loss.

ray_sj

Sorry to hear about your molly. Sounds like you're taking great care of them. Sometimes they just don't make it..

I looked at your previous pH thread.. Have you measured your tap water's pH after letting it sit out for 24 hours? My tap water's pH will rise significantly after sitting out for a while. Also, have you measured your water's alkalinity and hardness? Your water might be very soft, which means it has a hard time holding a steady pH. This might lead to fluctuating pH which would stress your fish.

melfrany

Thank you all for the support.

I've seen that some of you read my post about the PH going up and down and since I'm trying to solve that, I bought crushed coral. It just arrived so I will put into the tank tonight. I will try to test my water for alkalinity and hardness as ray_sj suggested but I had such a hard time understanding how to do those measurements...
I have the Red Sea Lab Kit and inside there is a KH cabonate hardness test and also a GH general hardness test. Both come with the colors at start and finish, but I really don't know what does it mean...I just followed the instructions and I've got general hardness being 2 which is very soft...is it good or bad? but I don't really know if I did it right and if it is good or bad to my fish...
All I know, the other 2 mollies are acting very weird...they are hiding from me, instead of being very outgoing which is usually their normal state...
Well...let's see what happens...thanks for trying to help me...I appreciate.