Sick mollie

[ellner357]

Well my mollie is looking sick. Kinda looking skinny and always hidding and laying on his side up in my floating plants. Doing the occasional barrel roll. This isn't typical. I haven't seen anythin gthats shows sign of disease and I don't want this one to die. But I can't seem to keep my mollies healthy with the exception of him and the one female. Otherwise they tend to die after afew weeks what can I do.

[Melody]

How's the parameters? They like pristine conditions.

Can he control his swimming when he tries to move? Is he eating?

He may have been injured too.

Have you purchased all of the Mollies from the same source?

Try a good ol' waterchange - it never hurts.

[ellner357]

He was eating but has not lost interest. He looked like he had control of his swimming but has not very clearly lost it. All my mollies were from a couple places. These two were doing great for a long time. But he is definitealy very very sick now. Is there anything I can do. I doubt he'll make it the night at this rate.

[PintoHawk]

I think a water change sounds like a good idea. What are your water tests like? What is the temperature?

[ellner357]

Temp stays 78-79 I can't remember the numbers Ph is around 6.6 or so.

[PintoHawk]

Temp seems good to me, but as far as I know the Ph is supposed to be closer to 7 or 7.5 for Mollies. What about Ammonia? I had a scary cycle issue happen where my ammonia spiked a few weeks back and one of my fish is still trying to recover, I lost a couple (symptoms were wiggling/wobbling, not swimming very well in general, very lethargic, acting drunk when they did swim). My water has been WAY better since adding the live plants and I do w/c very often, as well. I also had a nice bout of ICK not long ago, so my fish have hated me for quite some time now, but I have been doing my best to fix everything. Do you test for Ammonia?

[CACAdmin]

It's diffiucult to know the cause of the problem. It could be (as PintoHawk suggested) an ammonia spike. Or a nitrite spike.

Best I can suggest at this point without knowing any more is a water change and possibly adding a little aquarium salt to the tank. Hope he makes it.

[tiff]

Just a thought, what do you feed them???
Could it be constipated?
Try feeding some peas, and maybe the problem will 'pass'.
I've heard epsom salt baths help with constipation but never tried it.
Just a thought.

[ellner357]

I feed flake, blood worm and brine shrimp and shrimp pellets. Maybe I'll try a pea.