What am I doing wrong?

[Bubble&Squeek]

My problem is this

I had been keeping guppies in my turtle's tank for her to eat and had gotten interested in keeping some fish in a smaller tank that I had.

The guppies I had been keeping in the turtle's tank flourished amazingly well, reproducing and getting their numbers up into the twenty's from just three fish. All this while a turtle was picking off a few at her leisure every few days.

Their numbers eventually dwindled from the turtle eating them, so after Chirstmas I started putting a tank together. Now I don't like guppies all that much, which is why I fed them to my turtle, so when I was starting up the new tank I went looking for some fish I would like.
I discovered fancy guppies, which I like a deal more than the feeder fish. I also looked up information on Black Mollies. From what I read about them, they could survive fine in freshwater. So I got the tank up and running, let it sit for three days and put my guppies and mollies in the tank. The water got cloudy and two mollies died. Thinking it over, I tried to figure out what was different from this tank to my turtle tank that fish seem to flourish in. I switched out the filter bags from one to the other, thinking maybe it had to do with the bacteria built up in the filter. This seemed to work well, as no more fish died. I decided to go and get a few more fish, so I went from two mollies to four and from two guppies to three.

Everything seems fine for a several days until I wake up to find a guppy dead as well as the two new mollies. One mollie had been acting weird since I got it from the pet store, like it didn't know how to use it's tail unless another fish was chasing it. Other than that, there was no sign that the fish were doing badly at all, no lethergy, active eating, interacting with the other fish how they always do.

The original two mollies are swimming strong as they have since I started the tank and the two remaining guppies seem fine, but so did the other fish before they croaked.
What is going on? This is my first tank so I tried to pick hardy fish that were decently cheap, but I do really want them to live and I seem to be having no luck at all and I'm very afraid that the fish that are still living are going to just keel over dead like the last fish.

Any advice?

[Heidi]

It does sound like new tank syndrome. Get a test kit and only had one fish at a time and run the test until you get rid of the ammonia and nitrites. I love the balloon molly's. They are so cute but there are few fish that can survive a cycling tank.

[Aaron_NSBM]

if you want another fish that does well and breeds for food for your turtle try green sword tails.. I use to breed them for pet stores when I was younger.. very hardy fish and kinda neat. the males have the swords females dont...just make sure to have breeding grass if you go that way!

[telefrag]

Any tank that is new, has to establish its biological bacteria.
what type of biological filtration are you using?

the cloudy water is a result of nitrate and ammonia levels spiking because no nitrosomonas bacteria has become established to break down the wastes the fish produce.

Its completely normal, but for cycling a fish tank, a more ammonia tolerant species like a danio should be used.

[telefrag]

Originally Posted by Heidi

It does sound like new tank syndrome. Get a test kit and only had one fish at a time and run the test until you get rid of the ammonia and nitrites. I love the balloon molly's. They are so cute but there are few fish that can survive a cycling tank.

just out of curiousity, how is testing the water going to get rid of ammonia and nitrates?


just giving you a hard time.

[Bubble&Squeek]

Originally Posted by telefrag

Any tank that is new, has to establish its biological bacteria.
what type of biological filtration are you using?

I've got a biobag filter. I put a filter that was being used from the turtle tank into the fish tank filter and that seemed to clear up the cloudy water and the fish stopped dying so I thought I had fixed it.

I'll go get a testing kit over the weekend and check it out. Once I do test it, how do I fix it if the ammonia and nitrate is out of whack?

And I'll look up the danio and swordtails, that sounds like a good idea.

[Heidi]

Originally Posted by telefrag

just out of curiousity, how is testing the water going to get rid of ammonia and nitrates?

just giving you a hard time.

Grrrr, and I come on here to have some dosage of sanity during my day. Especially here lately and I'm questioned like this?????

Well, I guess you run the test every other day for a couple weeks, add another fish, run for another week, add another fish and then well you know, time takes care of that whole fishy cycling thingy and whalla. See, the testing does the trick.

BTW--Hard time? You'll have to do better then that. You have some tough competition.

[chillywilly]

you proberly should only and fish about every two weeks apart form each other. You can also jump start your tank with a product called cycle. Did you use a water treatment like aqua plus to remove chlorine and other contanients from tap water?

[Heidi]

I think cycle is a waste of money. There is nothing in there to help cycle a tank. I tried BioSafe which is kind of expensive but I do think it helped get the bacteria levels up and get the ammonia and nitrites down to safe levels. It wasn't an instant cycle but it was a lot quicker then any other cycle I've ever had before with only one death (which may have just been an unhealthy fish to start with). I don't keep fish now, not with my four-year-old, but if I do ever start back with a new tank I'll definitely use the BioSafe again.