Ammonia

I'm still doing daily water changes and getting a reading of about 0.25 and no nitrite. All in all Ive lost my betta, and 8 other fish - plattys and mollys.

Most of the plattys died of the same thing - getting thin, swimming funny and then dying but I think the betta was because of the bad water.

How long will it take to get the water right? I got the tank just before Christmas.

Hiya jammy. Are your fish ok now then - no more deaths lately?

You will have to keep on with the water changes until you get 0 for both Nitrite and Ammonia for two days on the trot. It can take a few weeks so is a bit of a slog, but hopefully your fish will be ok now.

No more have died but another two have gone thin looking> They are still swimming round, and eating though so I am going to put them in a spare tank and see if I can dose them for Internal parasites and hope they do ok.

Jammy...Chances are the other tank wont be cycled....yes/no????

If it isn't, you may run into more problems & you wont know if it's down to the cycle or illness.
I'd just stick with the 50% water changes daily

No it's not cycled MC, but it's only small so I thought that I would be able to keep the water ok in that as there would only be two fish in it?

What do you think?

Well.. you will still get an ammonia build up with 2 fish in a smaller tank. You may end up with more problems.
To get your main tank running right you need to do 50% water changes daily. The thing with adding meds is that with the water changes, you will be diluting them. If it's a med you add each day then you can do your water change before you add the med. I think i'd be inclined to dose the main tank.
Just remind me.. what fish are in left in there?

4 rummy nose tetra & .........

5 plattys and 5 mollies and its a 95 litre tank

Thanks for all the help.

If all the fish are under the weather then you wont really be helping by taking two of them out and you may well be putting them under more stress.

You were dosing the tank anyway weren't you? I would carry on with that and also the water changes which are important for the welfare of the fish.

I'm still doing all of that but the fish still are looking bad. I just dont want to lose a whole tank full.

The fact you're still losing fish may just be that they were too weak and wont pull through whatever you do. The meds and water changes are only going to be doing good & fingers crossed the others will come through it

jammy, I cycled with fish too and it took a while for my water readings to get right. it's a pain doing water changes but it does get right in the end.

I had to do 50% water changes every day for three weeks. Tedious isn't the word for it.