Lethargic Balloon Molly & JavaFern

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

sheeps

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jan 13, 2015
Messages
3
Hiya; So about a week ago one of my balloon mollies got herself caught in the filter, (one of those dropdown clip on deals: Fluval C3) and couldn't get out. I dunno how long she'd been in there when I found her, but I got her out and kinda expected her not to last the night. She was pure black but now her left side is scarred speckled white. She was never a /hyper/ energetic fish to begin with, but after that she took to dwelling at the bottom breathing slowly.


I've got Javafern growing all round one side of the tank; in 8 months of keeping them, every time one of the Mollies starts showing signs of lethargy, they kinda chill in the plants.. until the day I'll get home to find the fish wrapped up in roots and lifeless.

Soyeah, she started hanging out in the Javafern, and so I scooped her into one of those 15x15cm mesh isolation units, in the hopes that she might pull through. 5 days of that, and she's still hanging in there; eating, swimming, and bubbling around like mollies do.

I let her out of the isolation unit, and she bubbles around for a few mins, then goes to sit under the java roots. And proceeds to sit there for the whole day.


Duel part question: Do I leave this fish to do as it pleases and if she wants to die, to let her? Will keeping her in a floating isolation box help her to become stronger? Inevitably.. Eventually? Once a fish starts showing signs of going out, I (personally) have never been able to save them.

And something else I've been wondering: Is the Java fern a bit of a death trap for lethargic fish? The roots get so knotted and they fly free in the water -because that's just what Javafern does-. The fish that get wrapped up in there are the sick ones to begin with; is them getting caught and not having the strength to get free possibly causing premature deaths?


Anyone whose got advice or experienced something similar? I'd love to hear anything;;


&& water parameters, because though it's not strictly relevant, ya'll ask that sorta thing ;):
PH 7.6
Amm 0.
Nitrite 0.
Nitrate 5.-10.
Temp 26C // 78F
Tank is 170L == 45Gal
Balloon Molly: M x3, F x6, (+Juveniles@~3months x3)
Honey Dwarf: Gourami: M x2
 
Back
Top Bottom