Silver Molly Not Using Tail

[jonny5]

For some reason my Molly has seemed to lose function of his tail. He is often in an r shape. With his tail about 20 degrees sloped down from the rest of his body. He still ungulates and ic his spine move but his actual caudel fin is not swaying side to side, more of a total body motion. He stays In that R position and rarely evens out to being straight. Any idea why this is, odd behavior or did he injure himself?

 

[nmonks]

For some reason my Molly has seemed to lose function of his tail. He is often in an r shape. With his tail about 20 degrees sloped down from the rest of his body. He still ungulates

Ungulates are hoofed mammals.

and ic his spine move but his actual caudel fin is not swaying side to side, more of a total body motion. He stays In that R position and rarely evens out to being straight. Any idea why this is, odd behavior or did he injure himself?

Mollies are sensitive fish, and there's something called "the Shimmies" which causes them to tread water, often rocking from side to side with the head held slightly higher than the tail. The Shimmies seem to be neurological, and the commonest explanation is poor environmental conditions. So run through the usual list: insufficient hardness, low pH, low temperature, social stress, poor diet. Adequate salinity often helps dramatically, especially if you're using marine salt mix rather than tonic salt.

Cheers, Neale

 

[jonny5]

Ah ok, ya tank just got cycled, ph is a bit high at 8.1 but toxins are zero ppm. I need to add salt soon, just don't want to shock the bacteria.

 

[jonny5]

update, hes back to normal, took him about 2 weeks and i raised the salinity up to 1.003 and hes normal and trying to breed with the femals again hehe.

btw how long is a molly pregnant? because ive had one female molly near twice the stomach size of the other female for 2-3 weeks now but the big stomach female is acting, swimming, eating and pooping fine.