Is There Any Hope For My Molly?

[river_rat]

my molly is suffering from something. its stuck at a 90 degree angle and floats at the surface. its been like this for a few days now. it literally happened over night. he is still active and i keep a cube of bloodworms floating by his head so he can eat (which he still does and poops fine)i have him in a little breeding cage under the surface to keep him from floating and drying out. any help at all would be nice.

 

[fluttermoth]

Tank size and tank mates? How long has the tank been set up and what's your maintenance regime? Any test results?

 

[river_rat]

75gal with two black mollies, a balloon Molly, angel fish, rainbow shark, blind cave tetra, and a pleco. They don't fight or anything maybe the rainbow chases the mollies and tetra from its corner every now and then but that's it . Id say this tank has been up for about 6 months now. Haven't done any water tests yet

 

[fluttermoth]

It could be old age. Most of the livebearers I've owned have gone all 'bent' in their last few weeks/days.

Always worth doing a large water change if you have sick fish though.

 

[XeroTolerance]

I'm sorry it sounds exactly like flutter said. Old age. How long did you have the molly?

 

[Athena]

I wouldn't advise you to "keep a cube of bloodworms hanging by it's head"...reason being that any food that is left sitting in tank water for too long will begin to cause an ammonia spike. Also, with frozen bloodworm it's always best to defrost the cube in a small amount of tank water (e.g. in a little plastic pot) then just feed a few pinches of the worms (with tweezers or a turkey baster) and keep the rest in the fridge for the next feed.

If you feed too many bloodworms, the fish can become constipated, too. So a good idea is to feed some squashed pea at the next feed after bloodworms to aid their digestion. Bloodworms shouldn't really be fed every day, either. Try to vary the diet so that they get flake/crisps (no, not the Walkers variety LOL), brine shrimp, daphnia, bloodworms (either frozen, live or those great sachets of jellied foods - TetraFreshDelica range).

Regards, Athena