Thank you! I also grow an aloe succulent in my kitchen. It's hot and relatively dry in there. I sometimes break off a piece and rub it over places on my hands. I did the something-like-a-75% water change today. The fungal symptoms seem to be gone but, this last bout was the second within 2 months...I am beginning to wonder if a fungal outbreak is a sign of stress for these gals - it's a sorority tank. They, I almost hate to say this, look really good today. I expect to give another dose of Prazipro this next Wednesday, along with removing yet another activated charcoal filter pad, and waiting. Sometimes this feels like a merry-go-round.Depends on if you have enough medication on hand (I know it can get expensive when you have to medicate a large tank - been there! But if you want to do a water change, you can do so, and re-dose the medication for the amount of water you've removed. For example if you dosed 10 drops of a med into a tank, did a 50% water change, then you'd add another five drops for the amount of water/medication you've removed.
Oh do I empathise with this! I'm prone to a weird kind of eczema that now only tends to appear on my hands. Generally flares when I'm stressed, but overdoing it on the chemicals and lack of self care makes it worse. I've had to start wearing disposable gloves for things like grocery shopping, so I can use hand sanitiser on those rather than my bare skin, since frequent usage of hand sanitiser was destroying my hands and making me useless... cracked, bleeding hands make everything you do so much harder! Have to be mindful to wear gloves when cleaning, and if I spend a whole day with my hands in and out of tanks, with the frequent hand washing that comes with that, mine get dry and painful too.
Just a weird tip that someone gave me, that actually helps me a lot, so hoping it will for you too - cinnamon. Try mixing some ground cinnamon in some warm water, then soak your hands in it for a few minutes. Rinse them off then apply a good non-perfumed moisturiser. Apparently cinnamon has anti-bacterial properties or something, but it really helps my hands heal faster somehow! I thought the person who suggested it to me was crazy, but my eczema had flared terribly, with infections and open sores, it was even affecting the growth of my fingernails. But the cinnamon soothed the terrible itching eczema causes, and my hands were drastically improved within a few days. It helped a lot more than hydrocortisone cream did, without the skin thinning side effects
And, these are poor pictures because I took them with my phone.
Aaaww! The pics are blurry, sure, but they look like the black mollies that have bred in my dad's tank for the last decade or so.
It had been overstocked, and I'd been slacking on maintaining the tank a bit in the previous months, but the wipeout was still worse than I'd have expected, since I was straight on to water changes and fixing the filtration. I don't know whether it was a bad enough spike that it killed a lot in one fell swoop, and damaged a lot more who just went belly up in the weeks after, or if they were weakened by the spike and then some other kind of infection took over or what, but ended up losing most of the fish in that tank.
Those are beutiful fish! I've got one molly fry that 'showed up' a week or so after I got these gals when I was doing a complete water change in the tank. One of the gals must have been carrying fry and close to delivering. I rescued the little critter and it's still too small for me to determine if there's a gonopodium or not. But, it's a bit bigger. We've got it in a 1 spare/quarantine tank. What worries me about this coming and going of this mysterious fungal thing is that I wonder if, a week or two or three from now, it will become obvious that this was something else and that I should've treated the tank with Maracyn. (Hmmm...the spelling on this might be off.) I am holding off on anymore fish. I want to make sure that this tank is safe. I would, if it were a perfect world, get more mollies. I think I could fit 3 more in, comfortably, possibly even sailfin mollies. But those black mollies are gorgeous. That's a bit of time off from now. First I have to make sure that the tank is going to be safe to house new fish. And, I need to find a good place to house our little molly fry since it is currently in our quarantine tank.Aaaww! The pics are blurry, sure, but they look like the black mollies that have bred in my dad's tank for the last decade or so.
Long story short, I took over maintaining his 57 gallon tank a year or more ago, since mainenance is too much for him now he's in his 80s. He's also decided he wants me to take the tank, so he can use that space for some of his birds and close down his outdoor aviaries.
But for the last 8-10 years, they've had these large black, silver and blue mollies breeding in there;
View attachment 131875
That's one of the original trio that were absolutely ancient, and huge.
For scale, that's a 57 gallon tank, and they were enormous.View attachment 131876
Every now and then, I'd bag up a bunch of the youngsters from these and the other fish, and take them to the store. They produced some really nice babies, ranging from a pure jet black, to mostly silver and blue with some black speckling. Since I knew they'd had the original trio for way more than five years, I'd held back a trio of the nicer youngsters, and there were some other black molly babies in there that were still too small to go to the store.
Over the last few months, we gradually lost the original large trio form old age. Sad, but I knew I wanted to keep the young trio to keep the line going when I took the tank, my mom loved these fish, so I wanted to keep the line for sentimental reasons.
Then, my dad decided to unplug the filter without telling me! Mid-Feb. One day, fish started dying in big numbers, I had no idea why, until he finally told me he'd unplugged the filter... Lost so many fish, including most of the remaining black mollies
I now have one young black molly left. That's it. I'm hoping she's old enough to be carrying sperm packets and can get that line going again. I will get a new male when I can for new blood anyway, but still. I'm glad I moved that female to one of my tanks when the losses hit.
Anyway, sorry for the essay ranting and whining! Just that your fish remind me of these guys, and I'm still super sad about losing those. The young trio I'd saved were beautiful, and the male had been determined to knock up the girls, so I'm gutted they're all gone. The female I have now is a plain black one, but she'll be carrying those silver/blue genes for sure.
something else I noticed, that dalmation molly, the big one, I read somewhere some time back that mollies can reach a body length (minus fins) of 4 inches! I've never seen them that large. The ones that I've ever had, even after a couple of years, don't get bigger than about 2 inches. Our dalmation molly is the biggest - probably a quarter of an inch larger than the black mollies. That's a gorgeous fish! They are also wonderful tank mates.Aaaww! The pics are blurry, sure, but they look like the black mollies that have bred in my dad's tank for the last decade or so.
Long story short, I took over maintaining his 57 gallon tank a year or more ago, since mainenance is too much for him now he's in his 80s. He's also decided he wants me to take the tank, so he can use that space for some of his birds and close down his outdoor aviaries.
But for the last 8-10 years, they've had these large black, silver and blue mollies breeding in there;
View attachment 131875
That's one of the original trio that were absolutely ancient, and huge.
For scale, that's a 57 gallon tank, and they were enormous.View attachment 131876
Every now and then, I'd bag up a bunch of the youngsters from these and the other fish, and take them to the store. They produced some really nice babies, ranging from a pure jet black, to mostly silver and blue with some black speckling. Since I knew they'd had the original trio for way more than five years, I'd held back a trio of the nicer youngsters, and there were some other black molly babies in there that were still too small to go to the store.
Over the last few months, we gradually lost the original large trio form old age. Sad, but I knew I wanted to keep the young trio to keep the line going when I took the tank, my mom loved these fish, so I wanted to keep the line for sentimental reasons.
Then, my dad decided to unplug the filter without telling me! Mid-Feb. One day, fish started dying in big numbers, I had no idea why, until he finally told me he'd unplugged the filter... Lost so many fish, including most of the remaining black mollies
I now have one young black molly left. That's it. I'm hoping she's old enough to be carrying sperm packets and can get that line going again. I will get a new male when I can for new blood anyway, but still. I'm glad I moved that female to one of my tanks when the losses hit.
Anyway, sorry for the essay ranting and whining! Just that your fish remind me of these guys, and I'm still super sad about losing those. The young trio I'd saved were beautiful, and the male had been determined to knock up the girls, so I'm gutted they're all gone. The female I have now is a plain black one, but she'll be carrying those silver/blue genes for sure.
Crossing fingers for you!
I will pull out the phone and try to catch this very shy little stinker. So...nevermind.Crossing fingers for you!
Same boat, I'm not confident in this tank yet since the big crash, so won't be moving any more fish into it for a while, until I'm confident that it's safe. I have fish in quarantine waiting to go in there, so no new fish until they've been moved, and the quarantine tank is free.
Well, that was the plan anyway. Until my cories in that same dodgy tank spawned yesterday! So the quarantine tank might be occupied for the next 2-3 months as a nursery tank.
Tempted to set up a fifth tank to use as quarantine so I can get some black cories, or another starlight pleco... but where does the madness with extra tanks end? lol. Maintaining four was enough work, I really don't want a fifth! So holding off on buying any more is the sensible move. I just hate it, lol.
Need a photo of your baby molly if you can, please!
Also thanks! I loved those black mollies. They were easily 4 plus inches, hoping I can keep this female alive long enough to reach that same size. Someone who knows more about fish told me mine were likely a cross between a black molly and a sailfin. You're right, they do make great tank mates! Peaceful, but food hogs. Those large ones used to come and eat bloodworms and things from my hand. Once I have a free quarantine tank, I'll start looking for a really nice male that could breed with my last female.
And, after several tries, I think I got the little critter. When did mollies get so shy?
Haha, just about! I can see him, but if you hadn't told me it was a molly, I'd have never known
I tried brine shrimp last week. It (I still don't know if this is a he or a she) wouldn't take it yet. I was planning to try with tiny brine shrimp again. The blood worms that I have are frozen and long. These blood worms are longer than this little critter. I've never heard of tubifex. Tomorrow, I'll ask at the Voldermort big box store on the north side of town - it's within our flight pattern for Friday shopping. We'll see. In the meantime, I've done a massive clean - I do this on this tank every two weeks - this morning, taken out the activated charcoal filter that I'd put in only a couple of days ago (but that's OK because I bought a few back ups last week when it looked like I was in this taenia thing for a long haul...) and filled up the tank with a dose of Prazipro. I loaded the drug into the filter (minus the charcoal filter) and let it run for a couple of hours before I put the mollies back into their tank. That was nearly 5 hours ago and they're doing well. I am planning to do a bigger (as close as I can get to 75% water change) on Saturday like I did last time. Tubifex. *Adding this to my look for list*Haha, just about! I can see him, but if you hadn't told me it was a molly, I'd have never known
Try hand feeding with bloodworms or tubifex. Seemed to tame my mollies! Some of the platies, who were much more shy, even followed and copied the mollies. By the end, the mollies would just barge right into my hand, no fear at all.
