Emergency! "mama" Injured Heroically Trying To Save Sis

[rrraven]

"Mama" is about a year old. She was the very first of the many inhabitants in the 60 gallon tank to give birth, and she did it *while we watched*, so she has always had a special place in our hearts. She's a marble balloon molly with lots of personality - always the first one to the feeding zone when I approach the tank, snuffling at the surface so she'll be ready as soon as the first morsel of food hits the water.

Walking by the tank just now I noticed her stuck up against the filter intake! Oh dear! I immediately disengaged the filter intake and she and her sister drifted away. The black sister floated to the top, and Mama sank to the bottom -- and was still breathing! I've been trying to revive her - giving her maximal oxygen and gentle motion. She is breathing fairly well, and can move her tail fin and pectoral fins appropriately though not terribly effectively. But she can't maintain an upright position. Left alone, she falls to the bottom and stays in one spot - upside down. If she's dislodged from the bottom, she can swim a little bit forward before falling back to the bottom.

I feel a little silly, I know she'd "just" a molly -- but she has always had so much personality. And it sure seems from the circumstance - can this be true?? - that her injuries resulted from an attempt to save her trapped sister. Nobody but baby guppies have EVER gotton pulled into this filter, so having it happen to two mollies independently the same afternoon seems extremely unlikely.

Any suggestions? I've got her in the nursery in her regular tank, so nobody will pester her and she's not rubbing her poor eyes on the gravel. Poor mama. Does she have a chance?


Rrraven
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60GALLON: mollies, guppies, albino cory, otto cat, rummynose tetras, redline tetras
(adding more mollies and guppies)

10GALLON: skirt tetra, kuhli loaches (addingEndler’s livebearers)
20GALLON tall: 4 angelfish (adding female betta or 2)

 

[Durbkat]

Put some stress coat and salt in the tank and have the tank light off and cover tank up with towel so she will be less stressed. Its been said that a fish isn't healthy if it can't succesfully keep it self or free it self from the intake of the filter then it isn't healthy.

 

[rrraven]

Thanks, Durbkat, for your super-quick response and advice.

I've added stresscoat and turned off the lights - good suggestions. No towel, though, it's a 60 gallon tank so it would be pretty hard to cover entirely (I guess I could use a blanket!).

I have aquarium salt, but haven't added it as I don't want to cause trouble for any of the other inhabitants. I think there's somebody else who objects to salt, and the mollies have done fine without it up till now.
60GALLON: mollies, guppies, albino cory, otto cat, rummynose tetras, redline tetras, dwarf frogs (maybe these are the salt haters?)

I did consider that maybe the two mollies were affected by something else and both got sucked in from being already weak. But it's such a huge tank, and the current isn't strong enough to suck them in from even the 1.5 inches away that the dead one floated off to when the flow was temporarily interrupted. So I concluded (perhaps preposterously) that the black one got pulled in and then Mama went to try to rescue her. They just don't usually hang out in that area of the tank at all - it's not their "space".

She's still breathing, but not looking any perkier, so I'm probably just torturing her now. I did once save a guppy who'd gotten stuck in a tube decoration and was behaving similarly though! So I'm gonna hold out hope for a while yet.

rrraven

Put some stress coat and salt in the tank and have the tank light off and cover tank up with towel so she will be less stressed. Its been said that a fish isn't healthy if it can't succesfully keep it self or free it self from the intake of the filter then it isn't healthy.

 

[Durbkat]

Oh I thought you said you put it in a different tank so it could rest, your right the corys can't have salt in the tank.

 

[rrraven]

She's in the floating nursery in her own tank. I could move her to the 10 gallon that has 4 skirt tetras and 2 kuhli loaches -- but I think the kuhli's might hate the salt too and the move might be more stressful for her. If the salt would really help her, though, I could try to catch the kuhlis and send them to the big tank. That would be a permanent move for them, I'd *never* catch them in the 60g with all it's rock structures and plants! They are mighty fast when trying to flee, so I'm not entirely sure I could even catch them in the 10g tank, lol. I've never tried!

I feel like I'm playing musical fishtanks. If the frogs and the other fish would be okay with the salt (I've been meaning to check them each individually in the books but haven't gotten a round tuit, sigh) I guess it might be simpler to just move out the cory cats. They'd be easier to catch and the 20 gallon-tall upstairs doesn't have much in the way of bottomfeeders (just ghost shrimp) with the swordtails (3) and zebra danios (5). No changes in that tank in ~ 4 weeks so it should be stable enough to take on 3 cory cats.

I'm reluctant to move her from her "home" tank unless suspecting that's where the problem is originating, since I don't try to keep their temperatures, etc, exactly matched.

rrraven

Oh I thought you said you put it in a different tank so it could rest, your right the corys can't have salt in the tank.

 

[Durbkat]

Well you don't have to move her just keep her in the tank and just keep the tank light off and just use the stress coat and put a blanket or something in front of where the fish is so it will be dark for it.

 

[rrraven]

Here's the six hour update. Mama is still upside down, but she's still breathing and she's moving around a bit more. She still is far from a prime specimen of fish health, but frankly I didn't expect her to still be alive at this point.
's questions below:
Test results showed 0 ammonia, 0 nitrItes. I have a new test kit that gives a broader pH range, and it looked like a 7.9 which seems pretty high -- but my previous tests haven't had that in the range so I can't be sure that's different from "normal" for them. The 10 gallon tank measured ~7.5 (also 0 am, 0nitrItes). NitrAtes -- this test kit has a really lousy colour scale for nitrAtes. Frankly I can't tell the difference ON THE TEST CARD between the colour they call 40 and 80. And the 20 and 160 colours aren't really terribly different from that! That being said, before water change both tanks definitely at least 40, and possibly higher. Do some tests have more readable ranges for this? After testing I did a 40% water change, and the post-test doesn't look much different -- though my tap water came up as 0.

Frog is indeed still there; gravel seemed a bit cleaner than usual, definitely not overly yucky.

Here's another interesting clue, though. While I was doing the water change I had the filter off, but had left the intake pipe in the water. There were bits of java moss and algae around the intake, which is not uncommon in my tank. Well, when I left the tank alone for a bit, I came back to find lots of the fish - especially the guppies - diliriously attacking the apparently delicious culinary offering. Fascinated, I watched for a while as they completely cleaned it all out. I think I'll add just turning off the filter for five minutes to the "occasional care" routine! Anyway, given that the mollies are by far the most in love with eating, I suspect this tasty treat may have been what lured them in.