My Male Molly Has A Terrible Case Of Popeye In One Eye!

[wendyngd]

Hi-

Poor male molly has "quasimodo" type enormous swelling of one eye--major popeye. I feel so bad for him!

I saw today that my ammonia level was so high. At the time, I had the filter media out of the filter because I was afraid that the charcoal would neutralize the antibiotics. Used ammo lock, retested water (test tube kit) and it hadn't changed but knew that the ammo lock would block some of the effects of the ammonia without lowering the numbers....

Changed 1/3 of the water yesterday.

I think he might have gotten an injury to his eye (only one is swollen) because since we got all the new gals in the tank this week, this dalmation male molly has been chasing them all--trying to mate with them. I figure he might have gotten his eye hurt that way...



Request Help

Tank size:10 gallon, with filter and heater
pH: 6.4-6.8
ammonia: 4 !
nitrite:0
nitrate:0
kH:
gH:
tank temp:80 degrees F

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior): male dalmation molly, Huge swollen eye (popeye) with pink skin showing around the pupil (?)- otherwise active- eating--just not chasing the females like usual--does hide behind decoration in tank sometimes for short periods of time.

Volume and Frequency of water changes:10 G --every 2 weeks

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank:coppersafe, aquarium salt, ammo lock, accu-clear, and recently- algae killer

Tank inhabitants: for the last year- 1 orange cat fish, 1 male dalmation molly (who was born and raised in this tank the last year), New additions one week ago: 2 female balloon mollies, 2 cherry barbs, 2 other red/orange barbs (forgot name), New addition 4 days ago: silver molly --female

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): New aquarium plant a week ago with new fish

Exposure to chemicals: melafix, and tetracycline

Any suggestions--Thanks, Wendy

 

[scooterchick]

Hi Hon,

Ok, first thing, you have to do a BIG water change to get the ammonia down before it kills the rest of your fish. The charcoal shouldn't be the whole filter, you should have a sponge and charcoal pad separate, I assume you;'ve put the sponge back in?

You have far too many fish in there, take a few back to the LFS, 2 weekly chages would be ok with a molly and catfish but with the extra additions you should be changing the water every couple of days, that combined with removing the filter is probably why your ammonia's rocketed.

Water changes every day is the best treatment, as well as removing some fish. Hopefully with nice clean water your molly's eye will settle down.

Good luck!