I have a pregnant balloon molly which is now white(started off an off white colour when younger)which has mated with a black sailfin balloon molly.

She was born in the tank and I have only had the one male, so I know this is her first mating/pregnancy.

Her mother was a white with fine orange stripes.

Do the young take most of their colouring from the male side or female?

Ta.

Ok, thanks very much.

Thanks for the advice.

I know that the water change has helped decrease the Nitrate but as it is so high from the tap, it was about 30 to 40 this morning, do I take it that the Prime has helped decrease it?

Did another partial water change and got the Nitrite to zero and Nitrate to 10 to 15, it isn't as orange as the 10 on the card slightly darker but not as dark as the 15 colour.

I only have plastic plants so will go and buy some live ones to help keep the nitrate levels down as they are quite high from the tap before the fish waste increases it.

I will go and read up regarding the best ones to buy.

I will do a partial water change and see what reading I get.

We did have some white spot treatment but it was out of date so I binned it and used salt and put a heater in the tank when one of the new fancies developed touch of whitespot.

I did have a quarantine tank until someone cracked it, I will have to get another small basic one just for emergencies.

Ok, I was peed off, I apologise for my attitude.

Not had a great day as days go, cocked up fish, new neighbours cat has left 7 lots of *$!* as a welcome home present in the front garden and my daughter had just arrived home with dog mess on her shoe (why don't lazy swines pick it up I don't know), calmed down a bit now.

I had cleaned the filter before we went on holiday, had a look earlier and there wasn't much in there, so most of the mess must have been in the gravel, I still gave it a rinse but used treated tap water..............

I usually rinse in dirty water but as I had done the water change and added salt I used treated fresh (Seachem Prime) to clean it.

I do have a heater in there, it is set at 76 degrees.

Oh and by the way the Nitrite reading was very low, the Nitragte was the higher one.

Done.

Bye

Thanks for the lecture.

Most helpful.

Now I wonder why people decide not to post on forums very often.

Yes, I cocked up and yes, I should have known better, after all, I have kept fish and been a member here since 2006 (take a look at my posts in the coldwater forum), so yes, I should have know better.

Think I will just read forums from now on.

Cheers.

Just did a test on the tap water (we are in a hard water area) and we have a nitrate level of 20.

I always said we would change to tropical once our fancies died and now is the time.

We had a 2 year old fantail and an oranda that was with us for a couple of months.

Basically, our fantail looked like he/she was on their last legs as it were before we went away for the week, last week.

Came back on saturday to find both fish half decomposed in the tank!

Anyway, I think I may have cocked up by being a bit too eager to get something else in the tank to replace them.

I did a 50/60% water change and sucked up all of the carp left in the gravel, but I didn't clean the filter as I didn't want to take out all of the good bacteria.

My daughter saw a couple of balloon mollies that she liked so we added those to the tank yesterday.

As I had done the water change I added a couple of tbs of aquarium salt to the water (not sure if that was right or not).

The fish have been swimming around fine although not sure if I should buy another female molly or not to prevent the male having a go at the female I have in there.

Anyway, I have just tested the water using a Master Test Kit and the results are: Ammonia 0, Nitrite Less than 0.25 ie very pale but not blue and Nitrate about 40!.

Yep, I should have done that before adding the fish, doh!

Should I clean out the filter or/and do another part water change?

It is a 120ltr tank that has been up and running for a few years now, has no live plants, just a couple of plastic ones and a couple of ormanents.

What do people rec I should put in with the 2 balloon mollies? (I know there should be babies in there at some point if they are anything like guppies which we kept in a smaller tank for a while).

Ta!