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Help! Molly acting weird

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Southcoast82

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Bedfordshire
Hi all,

need some advice. The molly I had for my 40ltr tank has been fine but recently started acting strange. He keeps lodging himself inbetween the stems of my plants?? Never seen this before. I wriggle it free and it does it again.

Is he trying to die?? Why do I do?
I think my dwarf gourami is also nipping it’s fin - could this be the cause ?

cheers
Sam
 

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Hi, can I ask a few questions, please. The more information you can give us the better.

You have already said the tank is 40 litres, but can you tell us the dimensions as well.
Besides this molly and the dwarf gourami, are there any other fish in the tank?
How long has the tank been set up?
Did you cycle the tank with ammonia before getting fish?
What are the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings for the tank water?
How hard is the water? I think Bedfordshire is quite hard, but you can check by looking on your water company's website. You need a number and the unit of measurement rather than some vague words (and the unit is important because UK water companies often use different units from fish keeping units and we may need to convert the number)
How often do you do water changes, and how much of the water at each water change?


The more info the better :)
 
Is the fish normally that colour or has it changed recently?
Because it looks like it has a bacterial infection on the rear half of its body. If it does have a bacterial infection, it is probably being washed into the plant by the filter current, and the fish is dying.

You can try doing a 75% water change and gravel cleaning the substrate.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

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 the media. tip the bucket of dirty tank water on the lawn.

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 a water change while using salt, add more salt to the buckets of fresh water before adding them to the tank.
 
Thank you for the info but can’t do anything now....as the mollie has disappeared !! I think the gourami got him. I lost an albino Cory a few weeks back the same way. Just went ...no trace of bones either .
Gourami’s aren’t usually aggressive are they??
 
Male gouramis are highly territorial towards other males. But all fish will pick on a sick fish and eat it while it's alive.

If the molly was dying, it is probably wedged under something. You need to find it and remove the body so it doesn't cause water quality problems.

You should also do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week after any fish dies in the tank. This helps to remove disease organisms in the water and reduce the chance of other fish getting sick.
 

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