Disabled Molly

[smegforbrains]

My Black Marble Molly was pregnant when I got her, she's now had about 15 fry.

During her pregnancy, she seemed to lose the use of her tail fin, having to flick her whole body to make a pathetic amount of movement through the water.

Now she is no longer pregnant, she seems to be struggling a lot more to make any progress at all. I notice that, although she eats like a horse, her tummy was starting to sink. She was put in isolation yesterday.

Today I was examining her and saw a small, perfectly round hole about 3mm across in her offside gill cover flap thingy. Underneath, inside the hole, it is red raw. As yet, she is not gasping for air, but seems very withdrawn and is just hovering at the bottom of the isolation tank, just surfacing for a flake or two and then returning to the bottom again.


I am already suspecting she may have dropsy, hence isolation. She is with a Platy currently being treated for a bacterial infection using Interpet Treatment 8 (anti fungus & fin rot).


I've seen mention of holes in gill flaps on the site but cannot remember where. Any idea of the cause? Is there a fix for this or do I have to prepare myself for a quick exit?

 

[WILDER]

Size of tank in gallons or litres.
How many fish and which type.
Water stats in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph.

Holes in gills can be bacterial gill rot to fish tb.
Sunken in belly can be internal parasites.
Red inflamed gills can be bad water quality, gill flukes, bacterial gillrot.

Do any fish lose skinny or bloated.
Check the anus of the fish to see if its enlarged or red and inflamed.
What does it look like when the fish go to the toilet.
Lost any fish to bent spines.
Any signs of flicking and rubbing against objects.
Any excess mucas on the gills or body of the fish.
Do fish swim in a jerky movement.
Any sores on the body of the fish.

 

[smegforbrains]

Size of tank in gallons or litres. 22 UK Gallons Hospital tank is 4 UK gallons
How many fish and which type. 2 F Mollies, 2 F Platys, 1 M Platy, 9 Pygmy Cory, 4 Adolfoi Cory, 2 baby BN Plec, 1 M Betta, about 10 Molly fry
Water stats in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph. A = 0, N'ITE = 0, N'ATE = 10, PH = 7.4 Hospital tank same results

40% water change yesterday

Holes in gills can be bacterial gill rot to fish tb.
Sunken in belly can be internal parasites.
Red inflamed gills can be bad water quality, gill flukes, bacterial gillrot.



Do any fish lose skinny or bloated. All other fish are fine and dandy apart from the Platy also in quarantine due to tail fin damage
Check the anus of the fish to see if its enlarged or red and inflamed. Anus looks fine
What does it look like when the fish go to the toilet. Brown strings each about 10mm long, consistent colour throughout
Lost any fish to bent spines. Not lost any fish in this tank so far
Any signs of flicking and rubbing against objects. No signs of flicking or rubbing
Any excess mucas on the gills or body of the fish. No excess mucus anywhere. F Platy in quarantine does have a tiny amount of white fluffy fungus under offside of dorsal which is reducing quickly under treatment. This appeared after she was isolated for tail fin damage and I guess was brought on by shock
Do fish swim in a jerky movement. All other fish are fine in this respect. The only one with questionable swimming is this F Molly
Any sores on the body of the fish. No sores that I can see

 

[WILDER]

The board keeps playing up so it hard to reply fast.

Does her belly look sunken in or just lost weight due to giving birth.
If she not flicking and rubbing sounds like its not gill flukes which is causing the gill to have holes or look inflamed.

Does it look like the tail weighing her down in the water when she swims as that can be swim bladder.

Dropsy signs are being bloated, sticking out scales, inflamed anus.

I would treat her issolation tank with anti internal bacteria med by interpet.
Holes in the gills can be fish tb aswell so leave you a link to know what to look for.
http/www.torrens.org.uk/NatHist/Aqua/disease/tb.html

 

[smegforbrains]

As I only have the one quarantine tank at the mo, both Platy and Molly are together.

The Platy went in first and has been treated with Interpet #8 (Anti-fungus & Fin Rot)

Is this going to be effective on the Molly?


Her rear end does seem to be weighing her down as she swims and she is having to use the whole of her body from dorsal backwards to move.

 

[WILDER]

No she dosn't sound to good and to be honest she has to many things going off.
All you can do is try anti internal bacteria med by interpet.
If she gets any worse I would end her misery.
Scroll down to hole in the gill.
http/www.koicrisis.com/symptoms/gill.html

 

[smegforbrains]

just taken a look at her - she's just sitting on the bottom. Won't move at all. Her mouth is just making a panting sort of movement

 

[WILDER]

Does she look like she had enough to you.
If you think she in a really bad way I would end her misery.
All I do though haven't done it for ages is get a jug of very cold water and add loads of ice cubes till the water freezing cold.
Add the fish it should take about 30 seconds. Leave the fish awhile to make sure it's passed on.

 

[smegforbrains]

Just had to do the worst thing ever.


She just wouldn't respond to anything - she even just lay there for me to pick her up.


The only thing I could think of was to get her drunk.

All I had was the wife's Peach Schnapps as I don't drink.

She only lasted about 5 seconds, just lay there not even trying to breathe

 

[WILDER]

Sorry I know how you feel fish keeping can be very hard at times.
Think you did the riight thing she sounded very weak.
I've had them like that where you can just scoop them up with your hands as they have no energy left.
Bless her R.I.P.

Make sure she has passed on and check her gills are not moving.

 

[WILDER]

This is a good thread on how to end a fish suffering.
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=207212

 

[smegforbrains]

Thanks Wilder


I'm not ashamed to say it, but doing that had me in tears for a good ten minutes. It's not something i've ever had to do before and it was such a difficult decision to make.


Poor little thing, she just lost the will to fight against it all.


I left her for about 15 minutes to make sure but I couldn't even look at her, I had to get my wife to do the necessaries

 

[WILDER]

I know how you feel I had to put one of my favourite fish out of his misery.
They say keeping fish is meant to be calming more like a nightmare at times.

 

[smegforbrains]

I agree.


They're not just fish in a tank, they are part of the family.


I really don't know what I would've done if it had been one of my Bettas or Corys, I love them all to bits. They are all individuals, all with their own personalities.


Anyway, on the up side, my quarantined Platy is recovering well. The fungus is just hanging off her now, holding on by the tiniest bit so it shouldn't be too long before she is well enough to go back in the main tank again

 

[ThePiggy]

I'm sorry to hear that you had to put her down.

You didn't have her flushed, did you? Not all water processing facilities are capable of removing everything from the water. If she had TB, that is contagious to humans and it's not something you want to be flushing. If you have a septic tank, the germs from the deceased are just sitting in there, waiting for the water to back up.

Some good ways of disposing of a fish are: put it in a ziplock bag and bury it where you know no one will be digging, put it in a ziplock bag and throw it in the garbage, or you could have it cremated.