Dalmatian Molly very sick

[jay34]

My Dalmatian Molly (male about 1.5") was very healthy and bullying around for almost a month. But he has been really sick for the past couple of days. I just did a 40% WC 3 days ago. Two clown loaches died few days ago (it was a mistake buying them, the shop wouldn't take them back). And a little black molly fry also died this morning. I am not sure if the drop in temperature a week ago caused all these, I raised the temp now and its around 84 degrees. All my fish were healthy until a week ago.
Tank Spec: 34 Gal, Aqueon quite flow 30, Aqueon Heater, UV Sterilizer, Air stip.
Water quality: No3 20ppm, No2 0.5ppm, ph 6.5, KH 80ppm, GH 180ppm(GH seems to have spiked just this week). I do 30% WC every 10 days.
Fish Food: API Tropical flakes and Wardley Shrimp pellets.
Fish in tank: 3 black mollies, 2 dalmatian mollies, 4 swordtail, 2 red dwarf platy, 3 silver tetras.
Symptoms: First day his fins turned very stiff (including his sail fin which he normally uses only when mating). The next day his entire body seems to have turned stiff and his only able use his pectoral fin and seems to have lost his balance. He stays at the surface in a corner most of the time now.

What am I doing wrong? should I isolate the male now? Rest of the fish appear to be perfectly normal and healthy. I will try to feed them boiled peas tomorrow, not sure if it would help...

I am trying to add images of the sick dalmatian. You could see that he has no control of his body and just drifting around like a piece of wood.

 

[jay34]

BTW: I use API - Tap Water Conditioner (when I WC)
and I just added API - Stress Coat+ to see if it helps.

 

[Fishfur]

If I understand the parameters you listed, you have nitrites at .5 ? That's too high, it should be zero, as ammonia should be zero as well. How long has this tank been running, was it fully cycled, with zero ammonia, zero nitrite, nitrates around 20 or 30 ppm ?

The temperature is too high for a tropical tank, temps that high are typically for treating things like ich, not for day to day maintenance. I would drop it slowly, a degree or so every hour or two, to about 76.

I think this fish is dying, sadly. I would euthanize it before it suffers any more.

Peas are for constipation. I don't think that's the issue here and they are not going to do anthing for the other fish. The stiffness almost sounds as though he may have had the fish equivalent of a stroke, or some other type of nerve damage. Possibly a head injury, unlikely as that might sound. Nerve damage can be caused by some toxins but if so, one would expect all fish to be affected.

GH can't spike in the sense that ammonia can. Typically GH is fairly steady unless you change the source of the tank water for one that's much harder or softer or you alllow the tank to run for a long time without topups or changes, in which case GH can drop thanks to the buffering minerals being used up.

 

[jay34]

Fishfur - Thanks very much for your response. This is quite a mysterious hobby... I had my sick dalmatian isolated in a bowl for 2 days, changed his water daily and added API Stress Coat, fed him boiled peas the first day and his regular flakes the second day. The difference was he could just stay stable in the bowl as there wasn't any water current pushing him around. I think he may have recovered. I put him back in the tank an hour ago and he goes chasing the females right away. I am not sure if he has totally recovered yet. Will see what happens. Hope I am not risking the rest of my fish by introducing him back in the tank?

About your questions:
Since I am new to this I did not know how to test the water parameters to begin with. I bought the tank at Petsmart and kept it running for about a month, Petsmart tested the water few times during the first month and sold me their fish only when everything checked out good. I use API 5 in 1 test strips, not sure if this is a good way to test?

As for the Nitrates, they went up just during my last test. I've changed the water once, will test and change it again.

How do I test for Ammonia?

 

[Fishfur]

Just goes to show you, animals can recover even when it looks almost hopeless. Whether you have now reintroduced a pathogen into the tank is impossible to say, since we don't know what was wrong with the fish. If it happens again though, if it was me, I'd euthanize the fish. It's a decision only you can make.

Nice to hear Petsmart waited to sell you fish until they thought your tank was cycled. So often they seem to be willing to sell fish no matter what. But doing your own tests is better. If you do have an ammonia or nitrite spike, by the time you get a sample to the store it may be too late for the fish.

As for the test strips, most people think the test strips are less accurate than the liquid test kits. I am really not sure, and I haven't ever compared the two, to see if there are major differences. I use both kinds, for different reasons.

I use dip strips to get a quick reading, because they are very fast, Usually a minute or so at most. Because I know what I expect to see, if I see anything that's out of the ordinary, then I use a liquid kit to test again. Some tests can't be had in strip form, so those I have to use liquid kits for.

It's not hard to use dip strips. Read the directions, they are important. Most of them call for dipping quickly into the water, then some will tell you to shake off the water. Others will tell you NOT to shake off the water. Follow the directions, it can make a big difference to the reading.

There will be a colour chart to compare the test strip to. It can be a bit hard to tell if the colours are very close, but it will help to read the test in daylight or by the light of some 6500 - 6700 K bulbs. Light affects how colours appear to our eyes. Always read them by the same light if possible. I read them under my tank lights, which are 6500 K.

If the colour on the strip matches a colour that indicates some level of ammonia, then you probably have at least that much ammonia. You need to do a water change. After the change, test again to see if the reading goes to zero, which is what it should be.

It's not a difficult skill to acquire, just a bit of patience is all you need. The only issue I can think of that might make it really tough is if you happen to be colour blind in some way. In that case you might need to get someone else to read the test for you, if the colours are the ones you can't distinguish. Other than that, most of us manage to read the tests reasonably well with a wee bit of practice.

 

[jay34]

I guess my dalmatian is suffering from swim bladder. He seemed to have recovered well during my earlier post, but for the past two days he does this occasional upside down suspended state at the surface. The tetras are picking on him while he floats at the surface, they must have sensed that he is in distress and food for them very soon. I will isolate him again and try epsom salt and green peas treatment tomorrow. I've not given up on him yet, he was the alpha male in my tank, I gotta get him back to his healthy state.

BTW - about my nitrite issues, i've fixed it and everything is normal now. I've realized that my UV sterilizer was the culprit. Although they make the water look crystal clear, they just kill everything in the tank including good bacteria.
Frequent water changes did not help, nitrites just spiked up to the max (luckily none of my fish showed any symptoms), then I switched off my UV sterilizer and it made a big difference the next day, and the following day nitrites were zero. I guess I should turn off the UV sterilizer from time to time or get some sucker fish to take care of the algae.