paralysed molly - any ideas?

[Tivaala]

ok, im confused so im gonna lay it out for your input.

saturday i bought 2 mollys. 1 didnt quite make it home, and the lfs replaced it with 2 more on sunday. today i noticed one of them acting weird (it may have been acting weird for a while but its very shy so i cant say) this evening though it was sort of shivering then sort of jumping kind of like an epileptic fit. as i watched it suddenly went paralysed fins stuck out stiff as a board and floated to the bottom of the tank. i fished it out straight away and put it in the QT tank while i decided whether or not to euthanise it as although it was upside down and ramrod stiff its gills were still going. this is actually what the first one did in the lfs bag. as it happens i had to rush out and ive just come back in to find it swimming around in the QT tank quite happily. so because im now paranoid ive been looking at my other fish and ive convinced myself i can see red streaks in some of their fins. so i did a test and ammonia reads 0.0 and so does nitrites. im wondering if maybe there was something wrong with the batch of mollys as they were both from the same shipment. im fairly certain its not my tank as the first one never made it that far.

 

[Tivaala]

ok really begging for help here. the recovered (ish) molly spends most of his time swimming around but still occasionally goes for an upside down lay down on the bottom of the tank. trying peas. i did buy 2 more mollys today, older about twice the size so not the same batch. 1 is a lovely lively little creature, the other is dead. she was managing to float upright at least and if the other one came near she would get up and swim a little but just got home and she's gone. it seems like SBD but i always thought fish didnt normally die from that? water is still fine in all the tanks,( 0 amm, 0 nitr, 10 nitrate temp is stable, floated bag, dripped water) the fry are doing well in their tank (2 more came with the 2 today), the main tank is doing well, the QT'd new molly is doing well, the seperately QT'd previous molly is mostly doing well but 2 dead with the same thing? ive never had a fish die when i got them home before and unless its my in car singing i dont know whats wrong.
sigh. well no more mollys from now on. somethings got to be off i just cant put my finger on it.

 

[jeffwisely]

you might want to watch the molly's from your LFS a lot of them can have ich. my aunt had the same prob. we treated for ich and 1 out of 5 lived and had fry. hope this helps

 

[Tivaala]

thank you. i'm pretty sure they dont have ich, but the advice about watching them is well taken. im definately off mollys from now on.

 

[Crepe]

Probably a parasite causing something with the CNS. QT probably won't help, it could even be viral. Destroy the fish and don't purchase them is your safest bet.

 

[Tivaala]

thanks Crepe, i was afraid it might be like that. i ruled out constipation and there were no visible signs of any other infection/disease. the recovered (ish) male died today. i guess at least some of the fry will probably have this aswell? whats best, wait and see or put them down?