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After birth Molly

23 16:52:45

Question
Kathryn,
My marble molly gave birth to fries starting from last night, and she hasn't been eating since the day before that, but I hope its just the hormone acting up with her, but now after she is done, all the babies are dead(dead since they came out), only like one or two are left(kinda moving)
But somethings wrong with the mom, she is gulping in air quite a lot, and she suck her mouth to one of the gravels in the breeder and wouldn't let go(I don't think she is choking though) and she seem to be so tire that the water flow is spinning her around and round and sometimes she flows on her belly.
What to do~  

Answer
Hi,
There is either something wrong with the female which caused the fry to be unhealthy when born, or you have toxins in your tank such as ammonia, nitrite or high levels of nitrate. These are all very dangerous to fish, especially fry. To find out is that is what happened, you could buy test kits for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, and test the tank water. If the ammonia or nitrite is over 0.0, that could easily be the cause. The same goes for if the nitrite is over 30ppm. You can reduce the nitrite and ammonia by doing 20 percent water changes every 1 or 2 days until they are 0.0, and the nitrate by adding more live plants to the tank.
Try and raise the filter outlet so it is breaking the surface of the water more. That will ensure she gets plenty oxygen. If she is still spinning, put a large rock in front of the outlet or turn it round so it is flowing against the walls of the tank instead of directly out into the tank.
Don't switch the filter off though, otherwise the beneficial bacteria will die.
If she is still not right in a couple of weeks, come back to me and I'll try to give you more advice.
Best wishes,
Kathryn