VelmaG

I only have Molly's. I'm having enough of a learning curve with them...not adding someone else to the mix! There's only Sally and her daughter right now. The other fry are in their own separate tank. I lost the other molly's through the learning curve (new filter without keeping old filter on...threw out the cycle.)

Tomorrow's change day. I usually do 20% on my 10 Gal. What I think I'll do is salt up the new water to go in...so 2 gal with 2 tsp of the salt. Should I maybe do a 20% water change every 2 or 3 days if she's still going? Should I maintain the salt even after she gets better? (Yeah...I'm holding that vision...she's the Mommy of all my little fry.) Thanks for all the insight.

So I pulled out 2 1/2 gal of her water, and put 1/2 TBSP of aquarium salt in there. She's still around, which is amazing. It said 1 TBSP for 5 gallons. Should I do more, or is what I did OK?

Well she's still around, which is surprising. She actually ate something this morning. I'll try the salt thing. I'll pop by the LPS tomorrow and hopefully they'll have some.

Sally is the last of my original Molly's. She stopped eating a few days ago. The water is 0/0/5, so not ammonia or nitrites (?), and the nitrate level was the lowest one the kit tests for. Her skin doesn't have the same luster, and there are some red dots on her cheeks (on the skin, not inside the gills). I tried to take a picture, but none of them turned out. I don't think I can save her, but there's one of her older fry in the tank (she's probably close to 1.5 almost 2 cm now, and I want to make sure it's not anything she can catch. My first thought was that she was just old. She was fairly large when we got her. The spots on the cheeks made me want to check in though. Her baby looks fine, and has been eating. Jeepers...whoda thunk you could get attached to fish. I'm getting discouraged with being sad every couple of months. I know the other situations were due to my learning curve (hard way to learn), but I'm at a loss as to what happened this time.

Never ever had fish before, and honestly didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I have...except for some aspects of the learning curve. We're looking at possibly moving to Okotoks, so I'm holding off on a bigger tank until after the move. Plus I'll have to be figuring out what to do with the 40 or so fry. Thinking of letting the school use them for fundraising. Who knows. I'm glad I did find this place. I didn't know that Big Als moved to the North in Calgary. I thought they just left. And I have more LFS to explore now. Printed out the Calgary ones.

No new pictures, but here's one with the other two who died. Wanda (black Swordtail), Jorgan (Sailfin Molly) You can see the two oldest babies too, and Sally. I think I took this a day or two before Wanda and Jorgan died.

We've had our tank since September, and have killed a few fish in that time. It seems just when I think I'm getting to know what I need to know, the learning curve kicks in. We now have two tanks, both 10 gallon. Our main tank, which has our Molly Mummy named Sally. I think she's a Creamcicle (sp) Molly. Orange on top with a white tummy. It also has her 2 oldest babies, who are also orange like her. We lost Jorgan, our sailfin, and Wanda, our Swordtail just over a week ago due to the learning curve. (New Filter, without keeping the old one in place to maintain the Cycle.) The 2nd tank has the other 40 fry in it. When I blew the Cycle on the first tank, I pushed them into the new tank before it's cycle was ready, so I could get the main tank back on track quicker. Sally popped out 3 more babies on Tuesday, and I only got two of them over...think she may have eaten one. She still looks like she has a grav spot, so I wouldn't be surprised if I see a few more babies before long. Our main tank has regained it's cycle. I did one week of 50% water changes, and that did it. The fry tank is almost there. I started out with daily 50% changes, and just yesterday dropped it back to daily 20% changes. None of the new fry appear to be orange, so I'm wondering if the first two babies were from a father that was in the LFS tank. All the new fry are greyish like Jorgan was. We haven't decided if we're going to get another male or not. Sally seems to be quite happy with all the space now that all the fry are out, and there's just her and the two small ones. Sally's quite a big girl. We are intending on getting a larger tank, but not quite yet. I saw a few in the Equipment for Sale section, but I can't see them yet. I'm thinking I might like to get a couple of guppies too, if we do get a bigger tank. I love their tails. Honestly, I didn't think I'd enjoy the fish as much as I have. We got them because where we are renting you're not allowed to have pets, and honestly, just for today I don't want the work of a cat or dog. Mommy ends up with all the work...just like what's happened with the fish. Looking forward to playing in a local fish forum. I found another one I quite like, but found that a lot of the products the members use there, I haven't been able to find here, like the Prime Water Conditioner. All the stores carry Aqua Plus. Warmly, Velma