A newbie needing help keeping tropical fish

[Jodiejo]

Hi guys... My 13yr old son bought a 60LT tropical aquarium in august with his bday money, we did a few weeks cycle before adding fish... Anyway everything has been perfect up until tuesday, but now one of his Dalmatian Molly's has been acting strange, tonight I've noticed he's been swimming with his head pointing down as tho as he's diving & then he'll flip over & swim upside down, can someone please give me advice on what the problem could be/or what I should do to help this fish... Thanks in advance

 

[henningc]

Sorry somebody did not get to this sooner. Your fish has swim badder disorder and likely by the time you read this he will nolonger be with you. Most likely the fish was exposed to poor conditions and temp swings prior to you purchasing it. You need to look up the disorder and should there be a next time you will be ready.

My advice for a fast reply is post in the livebearer section or other sections as appropriate. Good luck and feel free to P.M. me if you have questions. Again, sorry for the rest of the gang dropping the ball!

 

[Krissycakes]

Sorry to hear about your fish, I agree with the bladder disorder. =(

 

[Jodiejo]

Sorry somebody did not get to this sooner. Your fish has swim badder disorder and likely by the time you read this he will nolonger be with you. Most likely the fish was exposed to poor conditions and temp swings prior to you purchasing it. You need to look up the disorder and should there be a next time you will be ready. My advice for a fast reply is post in the livebearer section or other sections as appropriate. Good luck and feel free to P.M. me if you have questions. Again, sorry for the rest of the gang dropping the ball!

Hi, thanks for replying to my question... Good news our little mollie is still alive, he's not back to himself fully but he's getting there, i managed to buy swimbladder treatment on friday morning & started the process as soon as i got home, he's swimming up for food & then swimming back to the bottom... Am hoping I've caught the problem in time. I have a bit of sad news tho, we had 13 baby mollies, who are two weeks old now & up until saturday they were doing great, but sadly we've lost 3 over the past 4 days, i don't understand the reason why this has happened as all our other fish seem fine... Any idea? x

 

[Krissycakes]

What have you been feeding the fry?

 

[Jodiejo]

What have you been feeding the fry?

Just normal tropical fish food, i asked the guy at the fish shop where my son buys the fish from what to feed them & the guy said to just feed them a tiny bit of it, which we do x

 

[rmiller]

It's likely that they are too small to eat larger flakes or they may not be big enough yet to compete against the larger fish for food. A survival of the fitest issue. If you crush up some of the flakes into smaller bits and spread them in different places around the tank maybe more of them will be able to find the food.

What's your plan once the babies get bigger? Will all of the surviving over stock your tank?

 

[Jodiejo]

Hi, thank you for your advice... the babies are still in the incubator, as they're only 3wks old... we've actually lost 5 of them now, not sure why, I went back to the shop where we buy the fish from & they've said that they might of died due to not getting enough food as other babies get to it first, I feed them the same flakes as the other fish but break it down to the tiniest of crumbs. Theres a local fish shop up the rd from me that will take the remaining babies off me, as I don't want to keep them as the tank is not big enough for anymore fish. I'm more concerned again now with my original problem, our Molly fish that was poorly, he perked up a little as soon as i treated the tank with the swim bladder treatment, but now he's gone very weak again, he's hardly eating, he's just laying at the bottom of the tank most of the time... But if I walk over to the tank he will swim to the top but he's back down as quick as he swam up, its pretty sad seeing him like this, not sure what else I can do for him. Any suggestions, thanks again. Jo x

 

[Jodiejo]

Make that 6 babies, I really am worried now, just tested the water & its spot on!?! ?

 

[Cactuspixie]

The babies might not be able to tolerate the medication.
Babies are very sensitive to water conditions, and chances are that they are unable to cope with whatever caused your Molly to develop swim bladder disorder.
How much and how often do you change out water?
What are your ph, ammonia, nitrite and nitrAte levels?