Molly problem

[wildroseofky]

A few days ago I noticed that my adult dalmatian molly was hanging out near the heater a lot and her fins were droopy. I fed the fish and she came to the food and ate with gusto though so I just figured she was tired from being chased by my Juvenal male (3 months old). The next day I saw that she was still by the heater and looked to be in distress. When I checked her she had several white "lumps" and her eye was swollen and looked like it had a white things sticking out of it. Like a piece of rice stuck in her eye. One of her gills was also swollen. I was afraid she had ick. I immediately set up QT tank and put her in there. I added two teaspoons of canning salt and kept the water level low to give more oxygen to the water. I also added a few drops of liquid B vitamins. Within a couple of hours she was almost back to normal. The white spots had faded to a grayish color. Her eye had gone back to normal size and she was swimming around normally with her fins unclenched. She ate normally.

I checked on my other two junvinal fish and noticed that one was laying on the bottom of the tank and it's gill were moving rapidly. My other one seemed to have white patches and looked sluggish. I moved them both to the QT tank. This morning everyone is fine.

I checked my tank perimeters while this was going on and they were

Ammonia .25. I have been having a problem with it and have been working on finding out why. It never goes above .25

Nitrite 0

Nitrate 20

PH 7.2

I think I found the problem with the ammonia. I have a moss "tree" and it was full of gunk. When I shook it, my tank became clouded with debris. I have a problem with overfeeding. I am trying to break this habit but worry that my bottom feeders will go hungry. I have ghost shrimp and 3 apple/mystery snails. Everybody but the fish are fine. My shrimp and snails are breeding like crazy.

I also went too long on replacing my diy CO2 mixture and it lead to an algae outbreak. There was tones of a reddish, slimy algae on the top of my tree moss and stag horn algae on some of my other plants, as well as, hair algae and a small patch of green algae on the glass. I pulled all the decorations out and cleaned them with tank water. Vacuumed everything. Cleaned the glass and filter. I did a 50% water change too. I took the moss tree out and rinsed it off in treated water and clipped out the worse of the algae. I cut my light period back to 6 hours.

Could all of this mess have made my fish sick or is there something else I need to worry about? How long should I keep them in QT and should I treat the main tank with anything? If so what is safe for shrimp and snails? I have a shipment of blue pearl shrimp coming in. Do I need to find another QT tank for them? Or can I just add them to the tank?

 

[freshwaterashley]

Overfeesing may notbe the problem really. Mollies are very messy and picky eaters so there will always be lots of discarded food. I notice that when mine eat they nibble and lt the rest fall, and of course noone wants to eat off of something someone has already bit lol i have ghost shrimp as well so they are very appreciative if my mollys eating habits. i had 3 of my 8 mollies die of the same thing that is going on wirh yours. Unfortunately i caught it too late.

 

[wildroseofky]

My Mollies eat every thing. They chase food all the way to the bottom and will fight with the snails and shrimp to get it. My adult has been stuck behind tank decor many times trying to get at food. She is relentless. I have cut back from three feedings a day to two smaller feedings. I tried once a day but the fish were attacking everything that moved trying to eat it. They are like piranha. LOL They even nibble on me when I put my hand in the tank. Attack the vacuum and will swim into the cup when I change water. I almost threw one of my fry away because of that. The smallest male fish jumped out of the tank the other day trying to grab food off of the metal tweezers I use to drop food in the tank with. As soon as he saw the tweezers he jumped out of the water and sailed right over top of them and out the tank. He hit me in the chest and landed on the table. I put him back in the tank and he started gulping food.


So far my mollies are doing better. The adult's gills are almost back to normal. Still some roughness to it though. The two smaller ones are looking brighter. The male had silvery specks on his sides that I attributed to natural color, however, it is now gone. He is back to being white, black, and orange. He is also back to trying to seduce the girls. LOL I am keeping a careful eye on the water perimeters. I don't have an adjustable heater for my QT tank so I can't raise the temp above 77 degrees. I did move the radiant heater closer to that side of the room to raise the ambient temp up. It is still only around 88 in the tank.

I have raised my main tank temp up to 80 degrees. I am going to increase it to 82 but I am afraid to go much higher with the shrimp and snails. I am also going to vacuum once a day. I didn't put any substrate or plants in the QT tank. I just stuck a ball of christmas moss I had extra. I can throw it away when done.