Problem with Black Mollies.?

Question

Okay, i bought 4 mollies from the pet store a few moths ago, 1 male and 3 female.

shortly after bringing the fish home, about 3 days later they had fry. I seperated the fry into a breeder net which i then hung on the side of the tank. I fed them fry food whilst they were alive. The problem was, they kept dying. Then, after the fry died, the parents began to die aswell.

I had around 40 fry and none of them survived :(

What can i do to ensure that SOME of them live old enough to reproduce again?

Answer 1

A second tank would be advisable for the fry to grow more quickly. It sounds as if you have some type of disease in the tank, but without more information about the deaths or potential sick fish, it would be impossible to tell what the problem is.

If not disease, it's quite possible you are having ammonia problems. If this is not a large tank, the extra fish and the extra food waste could be causing an ammonia spike. I would suggest you check the ammonia levels in the tank or have some of the water tested at a pet store. If the ammonia is high, extra water changes and gravel cleanings will solve the problem

Best of luck and feel free to email me if I can help further.

MM

Answer 2

What other fish are in the tank? What size is the tank?

Other fish can produce a large amount of ammonia and kill fish. I found this out as my friend put goldfish and Koi in the same pond. The goldfish killed the koi. Have you done a water change, and if so what kind of what are you using? If you are using tap water, check that. I just found a couple of fry a few weeks ago and put them in a net, so they are doing well still. However let me know what is going on and if I can offer more answers.

Answer 3

First off, tank maintenance, as in a 25% water change weekly or bi-weekly. The tank needs to cycle. Probably never had the chance to.
Here's more info...
http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm
http://fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin-cycling.html
http://www.firsttankguide.net/cycle.php
You can speed up cycling a little bit with something like StressZyme. You can reduce the casualties in an uncycled tank with something like StressCoat.
http://www.aquariumpharm.com/en_us/productCategory.asp?categoryname=WaterConditioners

Finally, Mollies are brackish water fish. That means in nature, the water is not quite sea water, not quite fresh water. You can add 1 rounded tablespoon of aquarium salt per 5 gallons. This will greatly improve molly's health. Remember to add salt after water changes to keep the levels the same.

Answer 4

My first questions would be how old was the tank? Was it fully cycled? And if it was fully cycled, were you doing weekly water changes completely vacuuming the gravel bed?

My experience with mollies is that although they have reputation for being fairly hardy, they do best in virtually pristine water. We have very hard water and they seem to like that, but they don't seem to tolerate ammonia and nitrite fluctuations at all, especially when a mother is about to give birth. The salt level doesn't seem to make a difference.

I'd just recommend being extremely careful with your tank maintenance. They seem to be some of the most delicate of the common live bearers as opposed to the hardiest. But as long as you keep up with the housekeeping, things should go well.

Answer 5

the same exact thing happend with me. Im still not so sure what happened, but i would get a smaller tank, and take some of the babies in there. I think that when too many are in one tank too much bateria is produced and they start getting sick, so i'd seperate them.