Amnagrla

Okay. I'm having some awful troubles!!! My babies are dying!

Over the past month, I've had I think 6 fish die.... I'm really getting upset here. The first fish to die was a 3 month old balloon molly who died of whirling disease or something of that king. Anyways, he noticably got sick and was laying on the ground and took a few days to die. Since then, especially over the past few weeks, I've lost 5 2-month old babies it seems like every couple of days. They show no sign of sickness at all. In the morning, I find them dead. The first one I found seemed to have been dead for a while because the eyes were gone and it barely had a tail. My other fish could have gotten to it however. The other dead babies do the same thing essentially. I wake up and look in the tank and there is a dead fish laying on the bottom. It wasn't sick the night before.

I've checked the water and everything is fine. It seems funny that the 5 babies that died are all from the same batch.

My only other idea is... however I can't substantiate it yet..... I have one male dwarf gourami who seems to be getting more and more protective and aggressive towards the other fish. Well, only one fish. The mother balloon molly. I've never seen him go after any fish other than Lily. And he is constantly attacking her to the point where I have to put her in a birthing net once in a while to make sure she is okay. However, I've NEVER seen him go after other fish... but they all are scared of him... I was thinking maybe he's attacking them while I'm not seeing at night or something??

HELP! lol any ideas? I had a whole tank of babies and now I'm loosing one every other day! The water is fine.... and it is treated with Prime (as always).

Allie

I know how you feel...I've lost 4 betta and my male kribensis in the past 2.5 months.
Dwarf gouramis are aggressive but I don't know why it's only with your mommy molly.
It's possible if not attacking, chasing...which could stress them out to death.
I am sorry you are losing so many fishies.

Jan

I am sorry that you are losing so many fish, it is so hard . I just recently lost my bala and that was hard!

From what I understand most aggressive fish are so when the light is off and no one is looking. Maybe try removing the dwarf gourami, out him into another tank and see if there are any changes?

bandito974

do you add aquarium salt? I have never had much luck with Mollies untill I started adding aquarium salt, and even then seems like I could only get them to live for a year!

Amnagrla

Well... I used to use salt up until maybe 6-7 months ago when I got otos and they suppposedly don't like ANY salt so I stopped using it. And they've been fine since.... until now.

You know, my fish tank is in my college dorm. I have it on a timer and a lunar light comes on. However, I'm in and out late at night and Nigel (the dwarf gouarami) always seems to just be chillin out in the cave..It's something to think about though...

I don't have any other tanks to put him in or I would. I may try putting him in the birthing net if he's bothering Lily again... but like I said, there is no sign of him being bad towards the babies.. :-( I just don't know what to do!!

bandito974

after re=reading your post, I do believe you have an aggresive fish, how big is your tank?
you might try to add some places to hide, like river rocks

COBettaCouple

There's no visible signs of something wrong on the babies the last 5 baby balloon mollies? like fuzzy spots on the underbelly? do they still have color? Unfortunately, the gourami would be the most likely source of the problem and might need to be moved to his own tank.

Amnagrla

The problem is some of the fish are white... so the discoloration thing would be hard to catch. The ones that I can tell, I haven't noticed any fuzzy spots or discoloration or anything like that. The only thing I noticed was the first dead fish lost it's eyes... but I think it was because it was a little while before I found it unfortunately.

COBettaCouple

quite a mystery for sure.. my only guess is the gourami. if you do lose another, and hopefully you won't though, could you get a pic to post?