sirdarksol

I got three young mollies for my wife's tank today. After an hour's acclimation, in which the water from their bag (maybe two cups' worth) was mixed with a gallon or more of the tank water, they were added to the tank. One of them was, immediately upon being put in the tank (and probably beforehand, as it was hard to see them in the bucket, the bucket's color made them well-camouflaged), resting close to the bottom of the tank about half the time and seemed to be breathing rapidly. The other half of the time, they zip around the tank madly. Seeming a bit neurotic, but I've never owned mollies, so this could be normal for them, or it could just be nerves from the move.

The water is well aerated, it has an airstone and a waterfall-like filter.

The pH of the tank might be a little low for mollies, but it isn't horrible (around 7.0 maybe, unless my reading's off, read below).

Ammonia, Nitrate, and Nitrite are all at 0 (yes, I cycled the tank, but I've also got plants in there, and the bioload was pretty small for the tank).

The tank is mildly brackish, between 1.004 and 1.008 in specific gravity, barely higher than my tap water. There's currently something like a teaspoon of salt in 35 gallons of water.
This is where my question on reading the pH comes in. Will this much salt make a significant difference in the reading?

As I said, I may be over-reacting, but I prefer that to waking up to fish corpses.

Chief_waterchanger

More than likely nervous from the move, but it is hard to say. After a couple of days of no tank-light and low-traffic in the area they should calm down. If they really seem very spazzy you can toss a light fabric blanket over the tank, something that won't trap too much heat in, but will act like a black-out curtain of sorts.

sirdarksol

Thank you, they're actually doing much better today. They had already learned the "feed me dance" at the fish store, apparently, because they do it whenever I walk by the tank.

zerotona

I had a sail-fin molly and I found he was the most sensitive to slight changes in water conditions. Whenever I did a water change he would swim madly around the tank for hours. The same thing happened if there was a slight rise in PH. I think they may just be highly sensitive to changes in the water.