Sick Balloon belly Molly (and tetras)

[artsymoni]

I have had my aquarium for almost 3 and a half months. I am relatively new at this but I thought I was getting the hang of things, maybe not.
Ok... here's the rundown.

I have in a 20 gallon tank. I started with 1 balloon belly molly, 1 micky mouse platy, another red platy, 2 neon tetra and an algae eater. They had lived quite harmoniously for just about 2 months. I love the balloon belly, so I went to the pet store and bought another balloon belly and 3 neon tetras. When I introduced the new balloon belly he immediately started to chase around my first molly and try to nip at the underside of his body and his tail. I was really upset by this because I am careful at reading about fish before I just go out and buy them and mollies (to my knowledge) have no reputation of being aggressive. This new molly continued to nip at the platy's as well for 2-3 days. He did not bother the neons as far as I could see.

Now a week and a half later, my first molly is lying on the bottom of the tank for the most part of the day... he isn't eating when I feed them. He moves around a little but not like he used to. The other more aggressive molly has mellowed out and appears to be healthy/fine. I treated the tank for Ick yesterday at 11 pm and it didn't help at all. (I had ick a while ago, and thought that it could be back...) Actually today two of my Neons are dead and the balloon belly is still laying around on the bottom.
The only other symptoms I can see are his top fin seems limp and he had a thin strand of white poop. The red platy has the same weird white strand of poop, but swims around normally and eats a bit.

I do water changes once every 10-12 days and add Nitraband, tapwater conditioner and a 1/4 tsp of Ph Decreaser because I tend to get slightly higher levels of Nitrites/nitrates due to our well water.

I just changed the water this evening and added some Aquarium salt to reduce their stress... and I am resigning to the fact that I may be killing my baby balloon belly. I reallly am getting frustrated.
Any suggestions???

 

[MissFishy]

You need to visit the link in my signature called "my fish is sick". I suspect ammonia poisoning.

 

[brian1973]

Hello and welcome, there are alot of stickies in the beginners forum that you should read. If you havent bought any test kits that is where you should start, you need to test both the tank and tap water for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, and PH then post back here with the readings and it will allow us to be more helpful. You shouldnt need nitraban, nitrates are better controlled with water changes but once you post your tap water results we can give you better advice their as well also once you post your PH levels we can advise you there but the most common advice on PH is to leave it alone your fish will adjust, constant swings in PH can cause more issues, if it is low to the point you have to mess with it, you need to have it adjusted before adding it to the tank, I believe a ph swing of .2 within an hour can be deadly, if that is incorrect someone will correct me.

Just an FYI mollies can be aggressive, each fish has it's own personality and IME it is usually older females that are aggressive, also males will harass females of other live bearer species as well, but others may have different experiences and will advise on theirs.

Anyway good luck.