camb27@comcast.net

Hello,

New to the Forum and I have a question about live bearers dying. I have a 55 gal FW with 2 silver dollars, 2 catfish, 2 neons, 5 black skirts and a couple of glows that are doing great. Anytime I add mollies, platy's or any live bearers they do not fare so well, usually dying within a few days.
I check and adjust ammonia levels, and unfortunately just purchased the Jungle 5 in 1 test kit wich I understand isn't that acurate (can't figure out which way to adjust the water with it).
The aquarium is not new and I did a complete water change and cleaning a month ago due to algea. I had the live bearer problem prior to this also.

Any thoughts??

CHoffman

Welcome to fishlore.
How are you adjusting the ammonia??..IF your tank is cycled you shouldn't have to adjust it. That may be your problem. Sorry your having problems with the live bearers. Some fish handle ammonia differently and since the ones your adding are new they might not be able to deal with it.

Nick G

Welcome to Fishlore! Do you buy all your livebearers from the same place? Livebearers are usually hardy fish, but problems can occur if they are constantly inbred, as this weakens their natural immunities, and the shock of moving tanks can kill them.

camb27@comcast.net

The live bearers have been bought from different places and the ammonia is 0. I believe I've found the problem, purchased an API test kit today and the GH is showing 0, should be around 3.4 to 6.7 from what the kit says. This makes sense since I never had a problem with water from other towns just here, very hard water,
So tomorrow we'll get some water softner and see what happens. Thanks for the input!