Problem With Molly - Urgent

Hello,

We got a aquarium about 2 months ago. It's 5 gallons one and we had 2 fishes in it (molly and platy). About month after this the molly gave birth and we managed to keep everybody in good heath till today.

Today morning the big molly was death. I didn't notice any symptoms - she was eating, swimming...A few weeks before she had those moments sitting at the bottom of the aquarium, but then she got back to her normal behaviour.

The baby is not filling good as well. It leaning on side on the bottom of the aquarium, it's completely disoriented and weak, rotating in the water and has even a trouble to swim around the pump (though I switched it to min). There is no red belly or any other signs. It was eating yesterday as usual.

I changed about 20% of the water this morning and I'll go to Petco to check the water condition. However, I was wondering if there is something I could do to help it. The platy is fine for now, but I don't know for how long.

Thank you in advance!

 

Welcome to fishlore!

Your fish are in too small of a tank. Do you know about the nitrogen cycle? There is a high likelihood that they are suffering from exposure to ammonia, nitrite or too many nitrates....or all 3.

 

HI and welcome! I would recommend picking up an actual test kit for the future, that way you'll always know about the condition of your water.

 

Thank you all. I will do it for a future, but what I need to know is what I could do right now. I'd like to save the 2 fishes left. I checked the water - the ammonia and HO are way to beyond the norm. Their advice was to clean with pump, change the water and pray basically. Is there something else which could be done? Thanks!

 

Other than changing the water, frequently (like 50% a day, possibly 2 times a day, until your tank cycles and then 50% like every other day or every 3rd day after it is cycled, until you get a new tank), I would suggest to get some stability to add along with your water changes, and some prime water conditioner to add to the water to lower the ammonia, etc.

 

You can temporarily detoxify the ammonia and nitrite by adding prime but you're going to need to continue with water changes and even pick up some bacteria to get a stable colony.. maybe even a bigger tank 5 gallons isn't really enough. But prime will immediately detoxify while you solve the other problems