What's Wrong With My Tank?!

My problems started with one platy acting weird and now all my platies and mollies are acting strange now. Here are the symptoms: staying near the top of the water line; sudden loss of appetite; hanging out on the bottom of the tank (literally on the bottom when not at the top); running into the glass when swimming; bumping objects/each other. I've done another 20% water change, all chem tests look great. No apparent fungus/parasites, etc. This is all behavior related and sudden (except for the one platy). I have an air stone, etc so I'm not sure what this is. Everything was cycled, fish were added at proper times. Any suggestions?

What is the temp of the tank water? Are the fish gasping for air at the top of the tank?

That's weird. I have no idea what that is. Maybe it is a multitude of diseases such as flashing, swimbladder, and scratching against objects.

My temp is at 78/79 right now because I read everywhere last night about all of the symptoms and all of the treatments had "raise temperature" in them. There doesn't seem to be any gasping for air, just kind of hovering right below the water line. Since waking up this morning, no one is at the top anymore. They're at the bottom. The mollies are doing the wierd run-around thing and the platies are kind of hiding, all on the bottom. These are the only fish effected. Guess I have to do more research.

So it appears that in the case of my mollies (one balloon and one sailfin) that I was given two males (yet again, PetsMart is filled with idiots). Could this be a contributing factor to my situation? This is also the case with my platies. Is keeping one sex bad? Can't find much on it. Upon very close inspection, the healthier platy seem to have something trailing from its anal fin (in between). It appears clear and looks like waste, but its just hanging on to him. Its appearance is clear. A worm perhaps?

That really is strange. I would guess that it could be parasites. Sometimes fish act like that when they are being treated with certain medications, but I don't think you have been treating them for anything. They do sound stressed though. Keep observing them closely and please keep us updated on any changes if any.

Thanks Megham. Yeah, stayed up until almost 5AM this morning (mostly due to neighbors having a rediculous party) so I checked on them every 30 minutes and wrote down any changed observations. If nothing improves, I'm taking them back to the hell-hole named PetsMart along with the water samples I've taken, pix of my water readings over the past 36 hours and a video of the fish acting weird. I like to be fully prepared with proof that I'm right and there is something wrong here.

When you have those species where keeping one sex is bad if you keep it with the same sex because they will chase or harass each other possibly to the point where they die or are really weakened from stress. I follow the sex compatibility thing quite faithfully as to not stress my fish. I just stick to the females although sometimes they are not as pretty as males.(In the case of gourami's) Most female fish tend to be more docile. Also, the fish you can sex visually tend to have sex compatibility problems. (Platies, gouramis, etc.)

Maybe pet"smart" should change their store name to something else.....

Quite a bit probably depends on the pet store manager. Then too, they buy fish only from certain wholesalers. Many of the wholesalers are huge fish farms, and a disease or parasite can spread fast. Also, the water at the fish farm could be very different from the water at Petsmart, which is also different from the water in your aquarium. Since you don't know how the fish were handled or mishandled before you got them, they could be over stressed. That in turn will make them vulnerable to diseases and parasites. Pet shops sometimes use a central filtering system, so if one display tank has a problem, they all do. Before you buy a fish, it's a good idea to check for things like clamped fins, gasping, shimmies, white spots, etc. Several years ago, I had trouble keeping new, live bearing fish alive, so I developed the sneaky approach: buy gravid females, and let them populate the aquarium.

I put a aquarium divider in today because my hospital tank is not up and running yet. I've kept the platies and mollies on the same side since they are the only ones displaying problems. I'm afraid that the other fish will be too cramped on the other side, but I'm not sure what else to do. The sick fish seem a little better than earlier today, but I'm still being very, very cautious.

And I will never buy from a huge chain store ever again. I found 3 new private fish only stores today but 1 of them sells painted glass fish and I'm not sure I want to support them because of that. I'm in Charlottesville, VA in which the city is only 10 sq miles so there is not much offered in the area for fish keepers. I have a house in Richmond, VA which is obviously quite larger and it has sooo many fish specialty stores. The drive is a straight shot and takes 1 hour 7 minutes. I wanted to know if this is too long of a haul for fish purchased in Richmond to be driven to Charlottesville?

Well my poor platy is dying. He's doing the whole spiral swim thing, crashing into the gravel and then just laying there breathing really hard It's so sad. Wish there was something I could do. With that being said, I'm taking the remaining 3 fish back tomorrow for a refund. They can have their sick fish. I found gill spots on my little balloon molly, so I'm extremely upset with these people at this point. The other platy and larger molly seem to be doing great. Everything is fine with them. The remaining platy keeps looking at the dying one...its kind of sad. Well, that's my update on this situation.

I drive 45 minutes to buy fish from a specialty store. I can definitely relate to small town living. The closest fish store to me is Petco as well so I usually make the long haul to buy fish. Sometime I wonder how the long travel in that bag affects the fish tho.

Well I'm glad that someone understands. I mean, I know its probably not ideal for them to be driven an hour in a plastic bag, but isn't that better than buying diseased fish from Super Chain Pet Store?

It's probably not ideal. But think of what it took to get the fish to the store, the one hour drive is nothing compared to that.

I sometimes drive an hour to get fish, i have never had a problem, so i don't think you should either

Ok, that makes me feel a little better.

What you can do to reduce stress of long trips is to bring a cooler and put the fish in there. The temp. stays more constant that way. This is what I do although I get some strange looks from some people.

That's a good idea! Oh yeah, and on the update of my platy: time of death 11:50ish. LOL, it's weird but I didn't want him to die alone. He was laying there looking at me when he died, I felt so bad! But the good news is that all the other fish are doing great aside from the small molly with the spot on its gills. Either way I'm getting a refund tomorrow from PetsMart.
What size cooler do you take with you?

A pretty big one with some cushioning so the bag doesn't move so much.

Oh ok. What kind of cushioning should I provide?

I use unused old clothes. Wow that was ironic. You can use other things too like small pillows, um I don't know improvise with something that is soft and cushiony.

LOL, ok, just making sure. You've responded to every single quesiton I've asked, so I'm sure you can see the pattern: I ask questions about everything! I've got tons of old clothes, so that's probably what I'll go with.

Those are some good ideas with the cooler and padding, i've done that with a bucket before, but didn't think about a cooler.

For long trips you can even get a battery powered air pump. If you tell the people in the aquarium shop that you have a long drive, they may put the fish in a larger bag for you. If i were buying fish, i would wait for the aquarium to become disease free, and i would introduce the new residents using the drip acclimation method.

Thanks for the ideas john! I was thinking I'd wait for about three weeks or so just to make sure everything is ok and on target.

ya you have to wait for it...

Does 3-4 weeks so like a good time frame, permitting that nothing suspect shows up between now and then? Or should it be longer/shorter?

since you have just 10 gallon tank so you may go for 15 days to do that...