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10 gallon Nerite/Molly tank

1462 Views 12 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  TurtleShark, 
TurtleShark
Deciding I wanted to start attempting to breed nerites, I bought two of them at Petsmart.

Later, I bought five more nerties (tiger nerites) to add to my first two.

I soon bought a 40 Gallon Sponge Filter and a Heater for my Nerite tank.

As of this post, I have yet to buy any salt to begin the breeding process.

Currently, there are no snails in the tank. They are in my other tank ( ) and are in there in order to avoid any nasty ick from attaching itself to them and hitching a ride if I needed to move them in order to safely do a heat treatment on their tank.

There are 3 mollies and two unexpected and unplanned for fish (pictus catfish) who have so far caused more trouble than they are worth.

One of the two pictus took a chunk out of my guppy's tail who was in the tank at the time. Sadly, the guppy did not make it long after that.

So, right now this is the Nerite tank:
Divided in half by an under gravel filter piece that is just right for the tank.
Pictus on the filter half of the tank.
Mollies (all female, one visibly pregnant (black molly), two silver lyetails)
Some pond snails who snuck in on various things.
Screen top.
Blue play sand an inch deep at the most.
Every other day 25% water changes.

Whenever I post important updates, I will put a date in red at the top.
Whenever I post non important updates, I will put a date in blue at the top.

Pictures soon! (Hopefully.)
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TurtleShark
3-27-14

My black molly managed to find her way onto the catfish half of the tank. I moved her back over and fixed my home made divider.

Then, I looked over the fish and found the very first ick spots on one of my silver lyetails. It's only on the one fish right now, but I'm not taking any chances. I've turned the heater up a little. I'll keep on doing that until I reach 88 degrees, my normal treating temperature.

Now, the two week quarantining period starts over again. Oh well. I always treat with 88 degree water for two weeks when I get ick in my tank. This is the exact reason why I didn't want to separate the catfish into a whole different tank. How can I heat two tanks at once when I don't have any heaters that are not in use?

Well, hopefully nothing goes wrong during the treatment. I'm going to check and make sure pictus can handle the extra warm water. I'm sure mollies can, but pictus I'm not too sure about. I've learned quite a bit about them over the past week, but I can't hope to know everything yet.
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TurtleShark
3-27-14

aqadvisor has the temperature range of pictus catfish the same as the temperature range for Tiger Barbs. I've treated a tiger barb for ick in 88 degree water, so I don't think it will be a problem (temp. range being 68-78.8 degrees) Mollies have it slightly higher, being at 64-84 degrees. That's quite a range!
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TurtleShark
4-2-14

I've been away for the past few days. I left my mom specific instuctions to keep the water between 85 and 90 degrees. I came home, and I nervously checked on my fish.

I can honestly say I'm surprised to see them alive.

There's fish food all over the floor next to the tank. There's fish food on the bottom of both halves of the tank and stuck in the filter.

And, worst of all, the water has been at 82 degrees this whole time. One molly is just covered in ick and at least one of the catfish is covered in ick. The mollies are swimming harder than they should be against the currrent. One pictus is just laying in the open on the bottom. Both pictuses are very faded.

Lucily, my black molly and the other silver molly have escaped too much of the ick for now.

I took out 4 gallons of water (I wanted to do 5 gallons but the water was already very low. Screen tops do not keep warm water in at all... ) and put in clean water, being extra careful to keep it at the right temperature. I would have used a gravel vacuum but it appears that they do not work too well on a tank that's on the floor...

My cat refuses to leave the fish alone and is constantly badgering them. I'm trying to cover the tank, but she's finding ways to get to it anyway. Usually it does not bother me at all, but healthy fish won't be killed from a cat attacking them though the glass but stressed fish are a risk I don't want to take.

I've very, very worried about these fish. I wish I had an ick medicine right now, just to kill any new ick that might attack the fish before the heat fully kicks in, but I don't I'm always careful to catch it and treat it early, but this time that didn't work too well... :icon_cry: I just hope all of the fish will pull though. The last time I saw a fish so covered in ick it died soon after, even though I raised the water temperature up again...
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TurtleShark
4-4-14

One of the mollies died yesterday. It was the silver one that hadn't been doing very well to start with. It was soon followed by one of my catfish. It's amazing how quickly the ick gets off a dead fish, let me tell you... The catfish wasn't dead 10 mininutes and there was no ick to be found on it...

Somehow my other catfish found it's way onto the molly side and my last remaining silver molly found its way onto the catfish side... Now my black molly is on the catfish side and the catfish and silver molly are on the molly side. I guess I have to get up and fix the divider again...

Water was at 89 when I went to bed last night so I turned it down a tiny bit. Hopefully I didn't turn it down too much...
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Briz
I'd be worried about the cat's paws in the water, since they will have traces of cat litter/urine/etc on them and can mess with the water parameters. He must be crafty!
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TurtleShark
Hehe, she can't get her paws in the water. She just attacks the glass where the fish are. If she could get in the tank, I wouldn't be okay with her attacking my fish. :D
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TurtleShark
4-5-14
I lost the other catfish... All that is left now are two guppies.

The silver one, the worse off of the two, was just picking at the plants that I have in the tank. A good sign, a very good sign. The two seem to be enjoying their run of the tank now that the divider is out.
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TurtleShark
4-7-14

After loosing all of those fish but two, I was really feeling down about it all. My silver guppy is hanging around the top still but there's a new light shinning in the tank.

Last night, I glanced at the tank to make sure all of the fish were alive when I saw something tiny moving around on the bottom. I took a closer look. To my very great surprise, there were three little baby mollies hanging around the bottom!

This morning I only saw two of them, but that's alright.

A little while ago, I counted 5 baby mollies in the tank. It makes me so happy to see the new fish. So very happy.


I added a video on the mollies earlier. I thought that I wanted to have some videos of them in case I loose them all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOFDQuhvFks&feature=youtu.be
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TurtleShark
4-19-14
I have not lost a single baby yet. About a week ago I did loose the adult white Molly. The babies have grown considerably and are now quite active. I will lower the water temperature and move the snails back later today. Everything is going nicely.
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Axelrodi202
IIRC nerites have planktonic larvae. If you're serious about breeding them you should probably give them their own tank without fish.
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TurtleShark
If it becomes a problem, I will seperate the two. But I am willing to give this a try first.
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TurtleShark
For nearly a month now, I belive, me and Mama (my oldest black female molly in the tank) have been battling a fungal infection... I noticed that she was acting weird not long after I turned the heater back down. I was in denial, refusing to believe that she could have ick again. She had been pregnant, so I thought her hanging around the corners of the tank was from that. Wrong. I took a close look at her one day and realize that she was covered in white! I was not happy. I knew what ick looks like, I knew it could not be ick, but yet I wasn't sure.

So, I did a quick run to the store and bought some PrimaFix which I used along with MelaFix for about a week. She was acting a little better and was swimming around more. Then, my betta came down with ick and I was forced to devote my attention to him as he fought a harsh battle with ick and severe fin rot. After he died, I decided to use the ick medication on this tank. If my Nerites were in it right now, I most certainly would have moved her. But for now it's alright. I'll do a carbon treatment of the tank after she gets better (if this method works, that is).

2 of the Nerites are in my other 10 gallon still and the other 3 are now in my 55 gallon tank where there is more room and food for them. Man, I wish I could just get the breeding process of these guys started.... :(
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