molly disease, help pls !

[briunder]

I have a black balloon molly. as i was doing a water change today i noticed he has a grey film on him and his fins are clamped, he is actively swimming and acting normal though. i am thinking it is velvet but i am not sure. what do i do? there are 2 other fish in the tank and some snails. i do water changes weekly and use conditioner, stress coat and a ph balancer once a month. none of the other fish seem to have this grey film. h

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Velvet causes fish to rub on objects in the tank. They usually breath more heavily and faster too. When you shine a torch (flashlight) on the fish, or take a photo of the fish with a camera flash on, the velvet parasites show up as a yellow/ gold sheen over the body.

A cream, white or grey film on the fish is excess mucous caused by poor water quality or something in the water irritating the fish. It can be fertiliser, medication, other substances in the water or external protozoan parasites.

Check the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, GH and KH.
The pH, GH & KH can be found on your water company's website or by phoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tank water to the local pet shop and get them to test the water for you. Write the results down in numbers when they do the tests, and write down what the test results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, etc).

Mollies need a pH above 7.0 and a GH above 250ppm.

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Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week.
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. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.