Manky Mollys....

[BigIan]

I noticed last night that one of my mollys had a @dark side@ to her face and one eye was a little crusty (not like eye cloud it was sort of sunken and loss of colour... she was acting normaly so i thought maybe it was a heater burn..

now all 4 of my normaly lovely gold/green/silver mollys are now all a brown type colour, with alot of fungus and some of there eyes are bulgeing...

they all are sat at the bottom barely moving except to flick and very little gill movement...

all the water peramiters are fine, Ph is 7.2 (normal)

 

[fish_fetish65]

treat them for fungus and popeye... melafix would probably do the job. they aren't pineconing are they?

 

[BigIan]

nope, i was thinking dropsy too but there bosy shape seem to be normal apart from the pregnant one.

i added melafix last night when i thought it was a heater burn thinking it would aid the healing but since then more mollys have become ill,

 

[fish_fetish65]

odd....

perhaps someone else here can shed light on the situation?

 

[WILDER]

Bactelrial infection, also with dropsy they can get sunken in eyes.

 

[BigIan]

what would be the best treatment???
i`m currently using melafix as i didn`t know what to treat for so thought if nothing else the melafix may help the fish repair any damage trhat may be done

 

[nmonks]

Can I ask -- are they in brackish or fresh water?

The symptoms you describe, which are essentially those of a opportunistic bacterial and fungal infections, are very common with mollies kept in freshwater. At the very least, the pH should be above 7.5, and ideally add about 5 grammes of marine salt per litre.

Also, try dipping the mollies in seawater for 20-30 minutes. Repeat every day until the infection is clear. Surface fungi usually fall off withing hours, it's really very effective. This trick is only safe with salt-tolerant fish, such as livebearers, gobies, and puffers, so shouldn't be used willy-nilly. If you do this, medicines like melafix can still be used, but you'll probably find the fish will get better by themselves.

Cheers,

Neale