New Molly Shaking His Head

[Doug62]

Hi all,
I was recently given 3 mollies (2 male and 1 female) from a friend with a very established tank. Mine has only been running about 6 weeks so all i have in it is 7 guppy's and they seemed to settle in nicely. However, over the last couple of days one of the male's has started shaking his left and right quite rapidly and this has now become an almost permenant action. Could it be the stressof moving tank? Also, the person who gave me them suspects that the female is pregnat and she looks quite round to me (although ive read females are quite round compared to the males and i have no real frame of reference) so how do itell if she is pregnant?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Doug

 

[Doug62]

PS. I also have one other question - would it be recomended that i add some salt to the tank? ive read that mollies prefer slightly brackish water but would this be a problem for the guppies (and i have 2 ghost shrimp?)and how much would this limit what other fish i could add?

 

[nmonks]

Doug,

Your molly has "the shimmies", which, as its name suggests, manifests itself as clumsy, repetitive movements in one place, as if dancing on the spot. Left untreated, the fish will die.

The shimmies are caused, almost always, by keeping the fish in the wrong water conditions. Mollies invariably need hard, alkaline water and (broadly speaking) at least some salt added to the water. Mollies do not need much salt, but at least a little is probably a prerequisite to keeping all your mollies happy, all of the time.

The actual amount doesn't matter too much, but I'd suggest 5 to 8 grammes per litre, for a specific gravity of around 1.003 to 1.005. You can use more salt if you want.

Most livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails) will adapt fine to this level of salinity, as will many other nice, small fishes -- gobies, halfbeaks, glassfish, and orange chromides -- to name but a few. Often people think that adding salt reduces the variety of fish they can keep. It doesn't; in fact, you'll find a huge variety of interesting oddball species do best in slightly salty (i.e., brackish) water. My web pages host a Brackish FAQ that detail most of the commonly traded brackish water fish, and my brackish book, out in May, has even more.

Amano shrimps naturally come from brackish water and only breed in it; this is probably true for most of the other small shrimps as well. All the freshwater crabs are really brackish water animals, too, and a few snails will thrive in brackish water as well, notably the Malayan livebearing snail and the very pretty Colombian ramshorn. Apple snails don't like brackish water though.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Doug62]

Thanks for the reply neale,
Well i'm going to add some salt then, i really like these little guys and want them to be healthy and happy. I have a couple of other questions - firstly, will adding salt complete cure this condition or do i also need some kind of medication? Also, once i have added the initial amount of salt to the tank do i just add the relevent amount to my weekly water change?
Again, many thanks for the help
Doug

 

[nmonks]

Adding salt will probably cure the problem, assuming he isn't too far gone.

Re: getting the salt level right, you can either download my program "Brack Calc" (see link at the bottom) to do things roughly by weights of salt per litre; or buy a hydrometer and measure the specific gravity. A cheap hydrometer will set you back about a fiver. Others will tell you how inaccurate they are (which can be true) but for mollies and most brackish, they're fine.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Doug62]

Ok, so i went to my lfs and explained my situation and that i wanted to addsalt to my tank. However, being the suggestable type i am ended up walking away with a bottled liquid called 'King British - Revitaliser Tonic'. This states it is a blend of liquefied salts designed as a fast acting solution to keep fish healthy and the man at the lfs said this would do the same job as aquarium salt. So i the put solution in and hey presto (its only been about 4 hrs) and it seems to have had a positive effect already, as all fish seem livelier and problem fish has stopped its repetative movement. So success then!! Only thing i am now wondering is - has this solution actually turned my water brackish?? And if so then will i need to keep on top of this in my water changes?
If anyone knows i'd be very gratetful
Thanks peoples
Doug

 

[WILDER]

Als check the gills to make sure they are not red and inflamed.

 

[nmonks]

Aquarium "tonic" salt, whether powder or liquid, is pointless. It's a hangover from days gone by, when people used salt solutions to mitigate poor filtration. Stuff should have been off the market decades ago.

No, it doesn't turn freshwater into brackish water, any more than orange squash creates orange juice. It's similar, but not the same.

While it's better than nothing, it isn't as good as actual (and cheaper) salt. So by all means use it up, but when it's done, go straight to your nearest marine fish store and by a small box of marine mix salt. It will cost you (per gallon/litre) a fraction of what silly tonic salts cost, and be far more effective over the long run.

Cheers,

Neale