Dead Molly

tom731

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Hi, I woke up today to find one of my Mollies dead. Over the past two days this molly has seemed lethargic, just sitting at the bottom of the tank although he would still swim around and eat at feeding time.

I am really at a loss to say why he died and am worried that it could be something contagious. There is no signs of disease on his body (picture attached) although I did notice that he had long poops of varying colour over the past week that he would swim around with still attached (Iā€™m no expert so Iā€™m not sure if this was a problem or not). That was before he started sitting on the bottom.

All my other fish (two mollies, 6 cardinals, 2 bronze cories) are happy and my water quality is good. The UK has had a heatwave the past few days and I know my tank temp has gone up to 28/29 degrees which is too high, I do have two airstones in there though to help with oxygenation and as I say, the other two mollies were fine with this. The temperature has gone back to 26 now though.

the tank is also being treated for ich with protozin. There were no signs of ich on the molly though. The only fish affected by the ich are the cardinals which seems odd but thatā€™s another Issue.

thanks for the help!
 

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Any chance of a picture and short 30 second video of the remaining fish?

How long has the tank been set up for?
How long have you had the fish for?

What is the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and GH of the tank water?
What sort of filter do you have?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

Have you added anything new (fish, plants, wood, etc) to the tank in the 2 weeks before this started?

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For future reference, you can treat white spot by raising the water temperature to 30C (86F) and keeping it there for 2 weeks. The heat kills the parasites and you don't need chemicals.

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If fish have long coloured poop it is fine and they just need a bit more fibre (plant matter) in their diet.

If fish do a stringy white poop, they have an internal problem.

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If you ever lose a fish or have sick fish, do the following:
Wipe the inside of the glass with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until we work out what is wrong with the fish.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

If you are still treating white spot with chemicals, you need to re-dose and do a 75% water change before adding the next dose of Protozin.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. Wash filter media/ materials in a bucket of tank water and re-use them.

Increase aeration/ surface turbulence.

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If you ever get sick livebearers, add 2 heaped tablespoons of rock salt, sea salt, or swimming pool salt for every 20 litres of tank water. Keep the salt in the tank for 2 weeks.

If you do water changes while using salt, add salt to the new water before adding it to the tank so the salinity (salt level) in the tank remains stable.
 
I'm sorry you lost your molly :(.
I know it's not related to the question you asked but what kind of substrate do you have? Cories need sand or they can get damaged barbels. The cories are also shoaling fish and prefer groups of 6 or more although the more the merrier.
 
Hi, I woke up today to find one of my Mollies dead. Over the past two days this molly has seemed lethargic, just sitting at the bottom of the tank although he would still swim around and eat at feeding time.

I am really at a loss to say why he died and am worried that it could be something contagious. There is no signs of disease on his body (picture attached) although I did notice that he had long poops of varying colour over the past week that he would swim around with still attached (Iā€™m no expert so Iā€™m not sure if this was a problem or not). That was before he started sitting on the bottom.

All my other fish (two mollies, 6 cardinals, 2 bronze cories) are happy and my water quality is good. The UK has had a heatwave the past few days and I know my tank temp has gone up to 28/29 degrees which is too high, I do have two airstones in there though to help with oxygenation and as I say, the other two mollies were fine with this. The temperature has gone back to 26 now though.

the tank is also being treated for ich with protozin. There were no signs of ich on the molly though. The only fish affected by the ich are the cardinals which seems odd but thatā€™s another Issue.

thanks for the help!
Sorry for your loss! It is so annoying when fish die, and very sad! I hope this rarely happens...
 
With the unattached colored poop I. too would guess constipation. I don't know about livebearers but when one or more of my fish behave like this I microwave some frozen peas for about a minute, then peel off the tough outer layer. This will add fiber to the diet. You might do this now for your other fish - it certainly won't hurt them, and some of my fish love them - others not so much - do this as a preventative off and on or just as a "treat" , green beans work as well.

I had a neon gourami - one of my first fish go through this off and on for several months until he was laying on the floor of the tank and not eating and getting very weak. At that point I euthanized him with clove oil dissolved in tank water (in a bowl) - he didn't even fight it when I took him out and put him in the bowl and died within a couple minutes. My point is sometimes fish just can't be saved, many don't live long anyway while others live for years. This was an adult when I got him and I had him for about 1 1/2 yrs so I don't know how old he was.

Sorry for your loss.
 

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