wakingupnow

I have always checked out my Black female Molly's tummy to see if she might be pregnant and today her belly looked big. So I assume that she is pregnant. Where her vent is is white like it's stretched and she has been fine until tonight.

She tries to swim up to the surface of the water, but then just sinks back down to the bottom on which ever side of her body she sank down on.

Now in the time of typing the first 2 paragraphs, I went to check on her and found her dead.

What is going on? This is my 4th fish death and quite frankly it's hurting my heart. If it's something I'm doing wrong I have to find out because I try so hard to make the tank as stress free as possible. If it's a disease that hits a while after I purchase them, does this mean that they already had the disease or is it something in my tank? I'm so confused.

The tank is still cycling and in the nitrites and nitrates stage with no more ammonia and the pH is 7.0. I do 25% water changes every single day with Stress Coat Plus and I always let it sit so the temperature stabilizes. I gravel vac every day too because the tank is slightly overstocked.

I think I'm going to do a 'necropsy' on my molly just to see if it's either premature eggs ore if there is something else in there. Obviously she died of something.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated and I am going to post another question in the algae section. Thanks so much everyone who has come to know my fishes troubles and mine as well.

This is her earlier today. She was totally fine, just her belly was big.

IIIHawKIII

overstocking while cycling isn't a good situation. runnin any airstones or anything?

Lucy

I'm really sorry you lost your molly.

wakingupnow

Yea, I know it's not good, but I had no idea about the nitrogen cycle and stocking or anything really about fish when I started so I ended up with fish that would probably die because of me.

I don't have a bubbler in the tank at the moment because my two guppies are in a makeshift tank with it while I'm waiting to cycle my 8 gallon.

Thanks for the reply.
Thanks Lucy.

Chrisson

Oh no! Your molly is in fishy heaven now with freshwater lakes the size of oceans.

I don't think that oxygen would be the problem because then the gills would be moving rapidly.

agabr123

i'm sorry you lost your mollie

wakingupnow

Thanks Chrisson and Alex.

I don't think it's an oxygen problem either because I always keep the water at a certain level so the waterfall can make lots of bubbles.

I have more bad news. The smaller of my Platies died and now my White Molly has symptoms of this mysterious disease.

The symptoms seem to be a hard time swimming to the top of the tank and listlessness. Snowy still has an appetite though. Could it be a bacterial problem? I can get to the pet shop tomorrow so any suggestions as for what medication to get tonight would be greatly appreciated.

catfishlover123

Well, livebearers die when they're about to give birth. It could be dropsy.

wakingupnow

Update:

Snowy seems much better, but now one of the larger Tiger barbs is having the same symptoms.

I decided to medicate the tank with Fungus Clear Tank Buddies by Jungle Labs. Hopefully I caught this early enough so no more fish are lost. And I do think this it is early stages of Dropsy. There isn't any other disease I have read about that has symptoms as this.

Thanks for the help everyone.