mollies

[mollyb]

hello i am new here and in need of some information on my mollies.
have a thirty gallon tank with two platys, and had six mollies.
everyone one seemed to be doing fine; the two platys and two mollies.
added four new mollies. everything going well till a a few weeks later when two mollies delivered babies. most babies died. bought a very pregnant molly; i know that is a no no now.

calico molly seemed to get shimmies, treated with salt but got popeye and died suddenly

well that very pregnant molly started hanging around the bottom of the tank, not eating and breathing heavily. had an injury to her side and treated with tetracyclline. wound healed but very thin, not eating and still gasping. hangs around the bottom of the tank.

several days after this, the other female molly who delivered a small load of babies started to become wobbly. body got bent like in half and then fell to the bottom of the tank. checked on her in the middle of the night and her eyes seemed to have blood in them and seemed very weak. did not make it, died that night along with her two month old baby.

her male mate seems depressed without her, they swam everywhere together. all my fish were aggressive eaters, now they have all become sluggish, clamped fins, small ick problem being treated for with ick guard two from jungle.

platys seem fine. no problems.

rest of mollies are starting to get bent as well and not eating . used to be like sharks after the bloodworms and tubifex worms. eating staple flake food and spirluna as well. now they are mostly hiding and seem unhappy.

i know stress from motherhood is a consideration. test strips say everything is ok with my tank. ph a at six but mollies were doing fine till i added plants to the tank. did rinse them well. plants are long gone now, since they ate them.

the gasping mom molly is still alive cannot believe it but is a rack of bones.

this is supposed to be an easy fish to keep and i am having this awful experience please help me. advice is appreciated. ive looked up all diseases and cannot find anything. the only thing im treating for is that small ick problem.


what am i doing wrong???

 

[Angel Lady]

how long has your tank been running? It sounds to me like high nitrites that will make them stay at the bottom of the tank what is your water readings like ammonia nitrites and nitrate and ph We need to know this before we can even start to help you any at all. If you dont have these testing kits I strongly urge you to go and buy these asap. Do a 30 percent water change in the mean time until you get the test results. This should help them some.

 

[Angel Lady]

and as for the ich turn your temp up to 85 degrees and add some salt a teaspoon per gallon of water mollies are a brackish anyway they thrive on salt added to the water anyways. and welcome to the forum

 

[mollyb]

thank you for your fast response. mine was not because i forgot how to get back here . well im back now. my tank has been around a few months. my grey fish died last night. stress was just too much i guess. she looked better though.

i did test my water and ammonia and everything is perfect. since last time, my white male molly still has red eyes but is swimming normally and appears a bit better. a black molly (so handsome) abdomen blew up and he is nose down in the bottom of the tank most of the time.

fish are not eating well. treating now with maracide two. (heard it helps with parasites and dropsy). stopped the ick meds (are done and dont see any signs of it. never was a great problem to begin with.)

i disovered some white spots on the black male molly started to become wormlike, i removed most of these aliens from him. are they parasites?

i think i am dealing with more than one thing.
birth stress
infection on grey female, but dead now; did respond to tetracycline
internal parasite infection

platys seem unaffected

no one seems bent anymore except the orange female, bent a bit sideways
female molly abdomen blew up quickly as well

having very thin white stool, heard it could be parasites. trying to feed pepso food
they dont really like it


fish seem otherwise happy but not like when i first brought them home. my platys and white molly pair were doing excellent till i brought home the plants and other fish from another pet store

 

[gingerbread27]

I am having the same problems with the bent female molly she gave birth then went down hill from there she just lays around doesn't eat. I too was told how easy mollies were to keep , I thnk they were wrong they have gave me more trouble than anything else

 

[Stacey269]

Don't give up on mollies. They really are hardy fish and easy to keep. I'm not sure what happened to yours. It could have to do with the plants. I have artificial plants, and molllies like to eat algae, which tends to grow on the artificial plants.

I've had my two since I started my tank. I have two black sailfin mollies. I've had one birth so far (9 babies). I had put them in my tank in the beginning when I was just a beginner, and they went through high nitrites and ammonia, up and down temps, until I got my tank just right. Mollies like aquarium salt in the water (2 tbsp per 5 gal) and they do like to graze on algae, so they are good for keeping algae in check. They've had Ich a couple of times, due to new fish, and I used "Quick Cure" which cleared them up in a few days. There were a couple of times when they began to look sluggish, but I changed 25% of the water and used a gravel vac to clean the water and they bounced back. I don't know why yours became bent like that, but I've heard of it happening before from others in this forum. They could have had something from the fish store when you got them. I've had a really hard time getting healthy fish from the local pet stores in my town.

They're cool to watch too because the male and female stick together and are real companions. The female watched her babies like a hawk, keeping the other fish away if they got near any of them. They're very pretty too. Don't give up on mollies though. I happen to like the sailfin mollies best of all the kinds of fish. Just my opinion though.

 

[Stacey269]

PS: The aquarium salt in the water also helps fish get over their illnesses faster.

 

[mollyb]

thanks you guys for your help. the black molly is trying to right himself and eat when i feed them. im so amazed he wants to. saw this morning a long strand of thin white stool twice. this is my last day of maracide two treatments and i bought some tank buddies to clear up external and internal parasites.

hope this helps. think im going to wait a day and do a twenty percent water change before i start this treatment though.

anyone out there have any experience with parasite problems?

and trust me i got so mad at myself for not being able to diagnose them properly but now i am angry at the pet store. i think they are over mass producing fish in unsanitary conditions. sort of like a puppy mill senario. i think this because i went in on a friday and the tanks were so overloaded with new fish it was sickening. you know they were gearing up for the weekend. and i to have difficulty finding mollies in my lps without clamped fins and ick. because the first thing they like to blame is your water conditions.

i think if i had been better aware of a parasite problem to begin with maybe things would have turned out better. they fish i had purchased were lively, happy, and appeared healthy.

i wanted to give up on them but like you said, they are beautiful and colorful. 8)

i am using aquarium salt and it seems to help greatly. the pH could be higher but i am dealing with one problem at a time. they do not seem to affected by the low pH

 

[Angel Lady]

add a little baking soda to the water it will raise the ph.Becareful a not add to much medicine at once to the tank it will stress out your fish. Mixing medicine sometimes will kill your fish. I am glad they are getting better for you.I had a mollie that got bent like that after giving birth. I took the fish to the vet and she told me it was somekinda parasite. But I really dont think she knows either. The fish winded up dying I did everything I could do to save her, but I didnt have any luck at all.

 

[mollyb]

well last night i did a twenty percent water change then added tank buddies from jungle for intestinal and external parasites. my white molly male who looked like he was improving spent the day at the bottom of the tank. did not seem to be breathing heavy or anything. i thought he was just hiding. till i came home very late tonight to find him way more bloated than before. he looked so good i dont understand .

i have spent more money on medication to treat for things i probably should have flushed the fish. i hate to say it but come on already. how frustrating. i work with animals all day and my goal is to try to save them and this is depressing to come home to.

sorry just had to vent.

anyway my other male black molly is eating despite not being able to right himself and swim well. did have a very long white stringy poop this am and still had it hanging on there when i came home for lunch today.

feeding the pepso food along with crushed flakes.

is there anything else i could try?

 

[mollyb]

came home today and found orange female dead in the tank. white male molly still holding on, although i thought he would have expired today. i had to dispose of him tonight.

got one left that is having problems, but eating and very active so maybe there is hope

seriously if anyone knows anything else i could try i would be grateful to know what else i could do

i think maybe i was too late in discovering their problem