Chronic constipation, or other disease?

[Torkelgutt]

I have a grown molly that I noticed wasn't swimming right a while back. He would swim slightly tilted, and when diving he would dive in fast spirals - usually until hitting the bottom of the tank.

After asking you guys for advice (http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f17/swim-bladder-whirling-disease-or-something-else-365856.html ) I ended up putting him in a bowl and feeding him peas for a couple of days. After that everything seemed back to normal, suggesting that it was a bad case of constipation. However, after a few days, the unusual behavior starts again, again I've treated it by putting him in the bowl and feeding him peas.

None of my other fish are showing any signs of disease, and the cycle continues. He gets sick, I feed him peas, he's fine for a couple of days, then gets sick again.

So, do you guys have any other suggestions for how to deal with this situation, other than me constantly moving this poor fish between tanks (or permanently leaving him alone in the small bowl)?

 

[Delapool]

How is poop (normal?) and general appearance otherwise (no wasting)? Generally once a problem fish, always a problem fish.

 

[V227]

Soak his food in an Epsom salt solution. The water / Epsom salt proportions vary from forum to forum, but according to some of the old pros, that's the answer to constipation and internal parasites. I think the mixture is one level tablespoon of Epsom salt per 17 ounces of water.
Be sure and research the proportions to be certain.

 

[Torkelgutt]

How is poop (normal?) and general appearance otherwise (no wasting)? Generally once a problem fish, always a problem fish.

His poop is small, black spots.

Other than the odd swimming at times, he looks perfectly normal.


V227: Interesting, I'll do some research on that.

 

[Delapool]

Hmmm, yeah - some sort of internal parasites / bacterial infection could be an issue as well but fingers crossed not if only one fish (not always true but hopefully).


Do you have ph, gh, kh readings at all and what are other fish? I have soft water here and do find mollies did better in slightly harder water. Used to have one lost every few months before that to nothing I could pin down.


Other one is old age?

 

[Torkelgutt]

Yeah, only one fish is exhibiting symptoms, and as mentiond they've been on and off for a long time, so I'm really hoping that's the only one that's sick, or that somehow this isn't a contagious thing.

I have hard water, but other than that my readings are all optimal. I do 10-15% water changes every week, and 40% once a month. (45 gallon tank, 30ish inches of fish). I've had no fish die on me for several months now.

My other fish are a mix of guppies, neon tetra's and platies. There's only one other molly, and it's an adolescent born in my tank. My sick one is fully grown, but I don't know the age of him as I got him fully grown from the pet store. I've had him for about 9 months.

 

[Delapool]

Fingers crossed - hopefully a one off.