Piping can also be caused by a spike in Ammonia or Nitrite.Fish exposed to high levels of ammonia will have rapid gill movements and gasp at the water surface.These sympyoms may be confused with oxygen shortage or a build up of carbon dioxide.Excessive amounts of nitrite cause increased gill movements,which may become irregular.The color of the fish also changes and they may become"pop-eyed"in appearance.It can't be co2 poisoning because the fish will die very quickly,with a highly colored look about them.If its an oxygen shortage all you have to do is insert an airstone into the tank.Oxygen shortage usually occurs where the tank is overstocked.
Well only the Clemeciae were doing it about 2 days after the water change and are fine now, the Characodon look good too but the Sphenops ae starting to becomer very skinny.
Mr Southwest,I'm presently breeding mostly Hybrid sailfin mollies.Sphenops should be a lot easier to keep then the hybrids.My hybrids are very demanding.Mollies are not fish that you just throw a bit of flake food to once or twice a day.Mollies love to eat.Mollies continually graze,and that dietary behavior needs to be respected. In my fishroom their diet consist of feeding of frozen foods,live grindal worms,live microworms,micropellets ,algae wafers,freeze dried krill,bloodworms,mysis shrimp,and brine shrimp.One feeding a day of flake food,and a gel mix.They are provided with a rich and varied diet and lots of it.My problem with my large mollies is that I'm not home all day, to feed and feed and feed them,but not overfeed.Feed only what they could easily consume in about 5 minutes,many times a day. If you feed your mollies like I do you have to do a lot of water changes,overfeeding leads to water pollution.My tap water has a PH of 8.4 and is very hard.I do not add salt to my water.I keep the temperture at 84. I do a lot of work to keep my mollies healthy and happy and they reward me by displaying their beautiful finnage,a sight once seen is not easily forgotten.I have to stop here,got to go feed my fish, LOL
They did good for the 1st month or so and just got very skinny, so I just put them in a pop pond with my excess guppies and swords fish. They came from wild caught parents. I feed all my fish Ocean nutrition flake, tetra frake and pebble, veggie flakes, frozen bloodworms, beef heart, brine shrimp, and microworms.
Gerard,I purchased a pair of these beautiful sailfin mollies about a month ago.They made it through a three week quarantine period all right,even though the female almost killed the male.Had to move her to another tank holding my black sailfins,where she almost killed my black sailfin male !!She's a real male hatter or should I say killer !!!Had to put her with my blue paraiba angels,this mourning I saw her messing with them.Think of how many fish we lose because of aggression.I'm sorry I didn't buy two pairs,this way her aggresssion would be spread around.
My molly female is very aggressive too. Attacks the swordtails and anything else that moves. Hopefully she will calm down when she's done giving birth - I don't have a male molly but she arrived pregnant. Any suggestions welcome for dealing with aggressive behaviour!
The best thing you could do for aggressive fish is to keep it in a large group.The aggression can't be spread around unless you have enough fish.When you add new fish,add them at night,turn off the lights ,and make sure you have the tank cover on and closed.If you have a hyper aggressive fish in the tank,and you don't have another tank to put it in ,get a breeder net.Put it in the net for a few days.Almost all Tropical fish have a social order in their tank and when you remove the most aggressive fish this shakes it up.When you put the fish back the order does not always go back to the way it was.Most importantly remember,spend time watching your fish to see that no one fish is being picked on too often.
Thanks, this is really helpful. I'm sure that part of the problem is that I have a 10-gallon tank which is already at capacity - 2 swordtails, 1 molly, 1 pleco. Next step is a bigger tank and more fish. And probably keeping mollies separate from swordtails.
She is a nice fish. I find mollies do better if ther are several females to each male at least 2 or 3 to one. Also I have noticed dominance behavior from all pregnant females. What you are seeing is not unusual behavior for mollies. When you first introduce a new fish there is aprocess of establishing dominance. male or females then it is better if there are more females like I said.. Hope this helps. gerard94114@yahoo.com
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