Silver Molly Swims Like a Seahorse

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Twoapennything

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jan 18, 2010
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Denver, Colorado
I'm not sure if this is problematic or not. My silver molly, Blanche, swims in a really odd way. She swims almost upright, kind of like a seahorse would. She looks like a manatee when it floats upright in the water! Her back is humped - moreso than it should be; her back looks like how a human's with osteoporosis would. When I first got her, about six months ago, she went through some kind of illness or disease where she couldn't keep her balance and was swimming crazily - quite honestly, I thought she was dying. But she recovered from that, but then developed the humped back and the odd swimming style. She seems perfectly happy and healthy now - she swims and socializes and eats normally. But she swims like a seahorse!

Should I be worried? Is this a disease with a name? Thanks in advance for any replies.
 
probably swim-bladder dysfunction ... can happen after some internal infection ..... not too much you can do at this stage. if the fish seems happy, you can just leave it alone.
 
I just had the same problem with 1 of my Serpae Tetras...It was fine one day and the next day it was kind of doing the jerking up-right motion but not swimming up to the surface. When I would come close to the aquarium it would notice me and swim regularly for few seconds and then would start doing the jerking up-right thing again. I transferred it into a 10gal QT and it lasted another day...found it dead earlier today.

The fish wasn't bloated or anything...It was 3+ years old though, so might have been an organ failure from old age.

Best of luck with your Molly.
 
Thanks, everyone, for the advice and BTDTs. Poor Blanche died about three days after I wrote this post. The last two days of her life she seemed very lethargic and unsociable. She must have had swim bladder disease or something. On the bright side, though, my other silver molly has given me eight fry that have survived for almost two months now - they're really cute. But they're also really small still - I can't see how I'm going to house 10 fully grown mollies in a 10 gallon tank, that also has other fish in it besides.
 
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