What is wrong with my Molly

[wildroseofky]

I posted this on the unhealthy fish board but only got one reply with no help.
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f17/molly-problem-260908.html

Basically fish was staying by heater for a couple of days. Eating fine but gills were moving fast. Yesterday I looked and she had a protruding eye with a white thing/lump sticking out of it and a few white lumps and a swollen gill on one side. Put her in hospital tank with salt. She was remarkably better in a couple of hours. Eye swelling almost gone. White lumps turned grayish. Checked on Juvenal mollies and they had whitish patches. One was staying on the bottom. All their gills were moving fast and they kept coming to the top of the tank and gulping are. I put them in the QT tank and they were amazingly well today. Large molly still has a few discolored spots and some gill swelling but it is almost gone.

Main tank has snails and ghost shrimp so I haven't done anything to it but raised temp to 80 and cleaning. should I do anything else? I was afraid it was ick but it didn't look like what I have seen in other fish with ick. How long should I keep them in the QT tank? Any other treatment I need?

Ammonia has been a little high. .25 but nitrite is 0, nitrate is 10. Found out my moss tree was holding a lot of crude and suspect that is why my ammonia has been up and down. Everything has been thoroughly cleaned and water changed.

I just need some advice on how to proceed. I am expecting some shrimp in and don't know what to do with them. QT is in use. Put them in main tank?

 

[Catfish Lover]

I posted this on the unhealthy fish board but only got one reply with no help.
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f17/molly-problem-260908.html

Basically fish was staying by heater for a couple of days. Eating fine but gills were moving fast. Yesterday I looked and she had a protruding eye with a white thing/lump sticking out of it and a few white lumps and a swollen gill on one side. Put her in hospital tank with salt. She was remarkably better in a couple of hours. Eye swelling almost gone. White lumps turned grayish. Checked on Juvenal mollies and they had whitish patches. One was staying on the bottom. All their gills were moving fast and they kept coming to the top of the tank and gulping are. I put them in the QT tank and they were amazingly well today. Large molly still has a few discolored spots and some gill swelling but it is almost gone.

Main tank has snails and ghost shrimp so I haven't done anything to it but raised temp to 80 and cleaning. should I do anything else? I was afraid it was ick but it didn't look like what I have seen in other fish with ick. How long should I keep them in the QT tank? Any other treatment I need?

Ammonia has been a little high. .25 but nitrite is 0, nitrate is 10. Found out my moss tree was holding a lot of crude and suspect that is why my ammonia has been up and down. Everything has been thoroughly cleaned and water changed.

I just need some advice on how to proceed. I am expecting some shrimp in and don't know what to do with them. QT is in use. Put them in main tank?

The ammonia in the tank is probably affecting the molly, they are VERY sensitive to ammonia, more so than other fish.

 

[Fresh N Salt guy]

Hard to tell from pics on my crappy iPhone. Qt til fish is better. My discus spent a full month in qt til she was better Not sure if its parasitic or not but with the eye cloud, eye bulge and white slime coat a dose of tetracycline might be the ticket. 1/4 recommended and 50% water change every 3 days. Basically a antibiotic available at any LFS. Look into it. Saved my baby from certain doom

 

[waterfaller1]

Are the white patches in tufts, or do they have a smooth appearance? It could be ich, but could also be a fungal or bacterial problem. Does it look like the fish was sprinkled with salt, or? It sounds like several things are going on. How long has the tank been set up, why is ammonia showing? You say crud had built up in a plant. How often are you doing water changes, what is the filtration and how are you caring for that, and how much stock is in this tank? I would not add shrimp to a tank with ammonia. This thread should be moved to the unhealthy fish section.

 

[Convict2161]

That looks like a fungus to me no ich. Is the whole tank affected?

I'd start treatment and start water changes.

You can use something like API Fungus Cure.

If your going to use meds, take your carbon out if your running it.

Looks like some fin rot and cloudy eye also.

 

[wildroseofky]

I posted on the unhealthy fish board and got only one reply with no real help and then the post got buried.

I was doing twice weekly water changes and cleaning the sand every couple of days but was told that I might be cleaning to much by another member on here. My tank has been set up since the first of january. I used seeded material from my 10 gallon and did a fish less cycle. I have around 20 ghost shrimp from babies to adults (started with 7 but they are breeding like crazy). I had 4 mollies (2 adults and 2 fry). One molly died last month of swim bladder trouble. The other adult was bullying her like crazy and she was pregnant for the second time n two months from retained sperm. I have three apple/mystery snails.

I slowed down the last two weeks on cleaning. Just did a major vacuum and water change on Sunday. Test water at least every two days. Top of tank as needed. I took my glass top of a week ago because I couldn't keep it clean, it was interfering with my lighting, and the temp here has risen and I don't have an air conditioner right now. I made a moss tree with christmas moss a few months ago. All the tank inhabitants love it. The shrimp are always in it scavenging. The snails too. The fish sleep in the top of it at night. When I clean the tank, I would just vacuum around it, trying not to knock the tree over. My ammonia has been slowely going up and then going back down on its own. I couldn't figure out why I was showing ammonia. The I took every decoration out of the tank and found old food and other crude hidden under the rocks and hide outs. I decided to even pull the tree out and give the sand a good stirring. When I moved the tree, all kinds of stuff came floating out of it. My tank water got saturated with crude. I cleaned all of the out. I put treated water in a bucket and turned the moss tree up side down and swished it around in the water to clean every thing out. I added a filter pad before the sponge in my aquaclear filter and have been changing it out as it plugs up to remove what was in the water.

It was after all of this that my molly started acting strange. Then the spots showed up and a swollen gill. The spots were sort of cottony. I used a Qtip to touch one and it was hard with a coating of fuzz. The gill has several small
lumps like an infection. The other two smaller fish just had whitish large patches with some silver dots showing around their scales. Like there scales were slightly raised. They would jerk and swim fast around the tank every so often. I decided to Qt and treat them too before they got bad. Today every body is so much better. I only put salt and B vitamins in the tank. The gill on the larger molly looks normal again. Where the larger dots were is still slightly discolored still. I didn't put anything in the tank with them and I haven't found anything on the floor of the tank like something feel off them. No sign of parasites that I could find. I don't use charcoal in my filter. I am going to treat them with tetracycline for a few days. Keep them in QT for a month and return them to the tank.

My invertebrates are the only thing that seems to be doing great in my tank. The ghost shrimp are making babies. My girls are always berried but I never expected to see little shrimp. I was really surprised when I removed all the decor and found tiny shrimp hiding. My snails are laying eggs like crazy and the only male snail is constantly hooking up with the two girls. Lots of eggs. I even have a large amount of limpets covering everything. I wish those would go away or something would eat them.

I am vacuuming my main tank every day and only feeding every two days right now. I am keeping careful eye on the QT tank and doing daily water changes. I wonder if stirring up all that crude caused the fish to get a bacterial infection? I have seen fish with ick and it just didn't look like what I have seen in the past.

 

[Rivers2k]

Your molly has a fungus infection and pop eye. Eventually that bubble behind the eye will pop causing death or at least loss of eye if not treated. Raise the Temp and get fungus medicine. It should clear up.

 

[wildroseofky]

The eye has already reduced in size and the spot has shrunken and turned a grayish white color. I started treatment today with Fish Mox. However, the adult has started to look aggitated. Like the med is bothering her. The other two are fine. I did another partial water change to lower the concentration of meds. I am going to pick up some paragard and anti fungus meds also. I will stop the antibiotic, change the water and treat with the fungicide. The adult is rubbing the sore spot on her side against the tank. I think the meds are stinging her. She was fine before I added the fish mox. She seems to be calming down some though after the water change. I dosed per instructions on the bottle but I should have started with a half dose I guess.

 

[wildroseofky]

Today all my fish are doing fine. I am debating on moving the two small mollies back to the 29 gallon. The ammonia level in my 29 is staying at 0 finally. I have only been feeding it every two days. I have really got to figure out just how much to feed everybody so I don't keep polluting my tank. I always worry someone will go hungry.

The adult is moving around fine but has a couple of pinkish patches where the white spots were. Looks like a healing wound. I am going to keep her in QT until everything is gone. All the mollies seem to be doing better in a tank with a little salt. I am thinking about getting a 20 long and just putting the mollies in there and keeping it slightly salty. Would plants grow in a tank with a little salt?

 

[Matt68005]

The stuff that comes out and ammonia says that your probably overfeeding. Substrate houses benificial bacteria. Next time you feed, look at the surface of the water from BELOW the waterline and gauge how much food is being uneaten. It gives people an idea how much their probably overfeeding. It only takes a tiny bit of food every 4 hours to substain fish and keep them happy. Mine is all crused to powder for my guppies.

 

[wildroseofky]

My adult molly was recovering but yesterday morning the eye swelled up again and the white patches got worse. I have been doing twice daily water changes and keeping any eye on water perimeters to keep everything in check. I picked up some Jungle Fungus Cure Fix tablets that say they will cure popeye, bacterial infections, ick, and a whole host of other things. I treated tank per directions and this morning she was not any better. I picked her up and checked the eye spot to see if it was moving. Checking for worms. I touched it with a pair of tweezers. It is a hard lump behind her eye with a part of it protruding. The spots on her side were soft on top and hard under neath the soft, fuzzy covering. I took the two smaller mollies out and put them back in the main tank because they are fine. I did a 50% water change and retreated the QT tank with the fungus cure. I only used half a dose the first time because I was afraid to do a full treatment with the smaller fish in their. I also added a tablespoon of canning salt. I treated some flake food with fishmox (amoxicillin) and hand fed her some of that. She is eating fine, swimming fine, and pooing fine. She just has a bulging eye and a white spot on her front fin area. I dabbed triple antibiotic ointment on the spots. I plan on doing that three times a day.

Anything else I can do for her? Am I doing too much? I have tetracycline powder which someone suggested using but I don't know how much to use. Should I switch to that instead of the fishmox?

 

[Matt68005]

Boy what a mess. Why do people quote entire pages on this forum? So annoying. There are diffrent types of bacterial infections and the reccomended antibiotics. I can tell you there are gram postitive and gram negative bacteria tho most are negative. Unless you get a microscope and put it on a slide all you or anyone can do is make an educated guess. Even if you do pick the right one it only stops the spread its up to the fish to clear it from their body. Sometimes they can but usually nothing works anyways and its a waste of time and money. Be careful with fingus cure its nitrofurazone a carciogen dont get it on your skin or let kids or dogs play in it or drink it.

 

[wildroseofky]

I know that there are gram negative and gram negative bacteria. Amoxil is pretty broad spectrum so I am hoping it will work. I was just putting it directly in the tank like the bottle said but then read that you can mix it with food and feed it to the fish so I did that. She was getting better with just salt and the fishmox then it started coming back. That is why I switched to the fungus stuff. I saw on the package that it can cause cancer. I am using gloves when I mess with this tank.

 

[wildroseofky]

My molly made a complete recovery. Her eye went back to normal and everything. However, as soon as I stopped adding salt to her tank she got another sore. I am thinking that she will have to stay in a slightly salty tank. I was adding 2 tbs of salt to the ten gallon tank but have dropped it back to one tbs. She has healed up again. I really don't understand what is going on. I hate to keep her in a tank all by herself but I cannot add salt to my main tank because I have shrimp and snails. I went ahead and added substrate and plants to her tank. The 1 tbs of salt doesn't seem to be bothering the moss and water lettuce so I added some java fern and Ludwigia today. Guess I need another QT tank.

 

[freshwaterashley]

My molly made a complete recovery. Her eye went back to normal and everything. However, as soon as I stopped adding salt to her tank she got another sore. I am thinking that she will have to stay in a slightly salty tank. I was adding 2 tbs of salt to the ten gallon tank but have dropped it back to one tbs. She has healed up again. I really don't understand what is going on. I hate to keep her in a tank all by herself but I cannot add salt to my main tank because I have shrimp and snails. I went ahead and added substrate and plants to her tank. The 1 tbs of salt doesn't seem to be bothering the moss and water lettuce so I added some java fern and Ludwigia today. Guess I need another QT tank.

Some mollies prefer brackish water over fresh. I have shrimp in my community tank and tgey dont seemvto mind. I add 1 tbs of salt to my 20 gallon and the shrimp and the rest of my crew seemvto love it. All are happy

 

[wildroseofky]

I had some baby mystery snails so I added them to the 10 gallon to see how they far with 1 tbs of salt in a ten gallon tank. They have been in there since last night and are doing fine. I am hoping to use this tank to grow out some mystery snails as well as keep the molly healthy. I only have two mollies in my 29 gallon right now and the male is harassing the only female. I am either going to have to put her back in the 29 gallon or buy another female molly.