Balloon molly laying at bottom of tank. HELP

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KingJamesIII

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My balloon molly is 1 of 2 that have been perfectly fine up until today. Iā€™ve had them both for about 2 months and all of a sudden 1 is just laying on the floor.. he sometimes moves if another fish goes by him and thatā€™s about it. Iā€™m scared he might be dying. I changed the water yesterday (50%) and checked my water and everything was fine on the test. What do you think it could be? None of the other fish are acting like that.
 

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My balloon molly is 1 of 2 that have been perfectly fine up until today. Iā€™ve had them both for about 2 months and all of a sudden 1 is just laying on the floor.. he sometimes moves if another fish goes by him and thatā€™s about it. Iā€™m scared he might be dying. I changed the water yesterday (50%) and checked my water and everything was fine on the test. What do you think it could be? None of the other fish are acting like that.
Swim bladder?
 
What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

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Add some salt.
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres (5 gallons) of water.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate will not affect plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.
 

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