Hi all,
To preface: fairly new to aquariums/fish care. So sorry for the lengthy post but trying to give as much detail as I can. I "adopted" a balloon molly and two glowfish danios back in February (well, my BIL was going to get rid of them and asked if I wanted take them). They had them for a few years but could no longer cared for them and I felt bad so I agreed to take them and was just planning on giving them a good "rest of their lives" with their current equipment and that just be it. However, I got attached lol and got really into it, been trying to be more informed.
They initially came in a 3.5 gallon tank and then I moved them into to a 5 gallon tank in March (yes, I do realize now that that tank size was still too small). The 2 danios have since passed away at different times within the past 2.5 months. They were the first fish they got 3+ years ago so they might have just been old and more susceptible to infections etc.?, and now I just have the balloon molly. A couple of weeks ago, we moved her to a 10 gallon (we basically moved everything from the 5 gallon into this one, including the 3 live plants (Amazon sword) & Java Fern
She usually swims happily around the tank, trying to find things to nibble on, swims up to me when I look in the tank etc. However, the past 3 days she's just been hanging out in one area of the tank at a time, near the top and kind of looks like she has more fast/labored breathing. She still eats okay, but it doesn't seem with the same voracity as I'm used to seeing. No signs of any infection or any issues with the fin/scales that I can see. I've been checking the water parameters every couple of days with the API Freshwaster Master Kit (except for the KH & GH was with Tetra EasyStrips). The latest one yesterday:
8.0 pH
0-5 nitrates (closer to 0)
0 nitrite
0 ammonia
150 GH (Hard)
~between 120-180 KH
Current water temperature is ~76
25% weekly water changes (last weekend was last), we do vacuum the substrate
I did read that labored breathing near the top of tank may indicate not enough oxygen, but there has been an airstone going (this was there since the 5 gallon), as well as some agitation for the HOB filter (the flow was a bit lower, and I upped it the other day) so I wasn't initially thinking that?
I don't think I can upload videos here, but I took this video and uploaded to imgur to show the airstone in the tank and her breathing:
https://imgur.com/a/lwhKZyK
Please, let me any suggestions you may have. Really attached to this fish 😞 thanks so much in advance!