Urgent Help Needed!

[Ally555]

As has been said in the title I need help with my newest female molly (have had it for over a month). It is one of three mollies in my community tank (2 females, 1 male).

Today when I walked into my bedroom I saw my female molly stuck to the side of the filter. The filters sucking power is not strong (how fast it sucks in water), and I have some small neons and they don't have any problems with being sucked in, but yet my female molly was stuck to it. I turned the filter of for a few seconds (long enough for her to get away from the filter) and she just kind of drifted away and didn't swim or even move her fins at all. Then a few minutes later she tried swiming but swam around in circles and when upside down. She turned herself the right way up and then managed to swim up to the surface of the water. I gave her a bit of food and from what I saw she ate that. She seems a little bit better now but looks very weak and sick.

All other fish in the tank are perfectly fine, and she was fine this morning until I came into my room at about 2:30pm or so.

I really need your help and opinion on what you think is wrong with her and if I can fix it. Please help as soon as possible because I fell that by tomorrow morning she could be dead.

 

[jesusjones]

Feed her again. And DO NOT try anything else.

Any extra stress will make her end up dead for sure. She is clearly already weak.

Feed her again and hopefully tomorrow she has recovered some of her energy.

These are my thoughts only. If some one more experienced says otherwise take their advice.
Rudy
and good luck

 

[Carl the Crimson Wonder]

Other than weakness is she showing any symptoms? Are there and spots or any other signs of illness?

 

[LauraFrog]

When a fish is so sick and weak that it can't hold its position in the water it's pretty much hopeless I'm afraid... was she skinny at all, and did you notice any strange (usually mucus or stringy and white) poo from her in the week or so before this started? Parasites and fish TB often do this to livebearers.

 

[Ally555]

She is very skinny so I'll feed her right away. Usually when I feed my mollies they get a fat tummy that goes away after a little bit but when she ate today she did not get that. She has been holding herself alright in the water lately (from what I have seen), but she has been at the top of the tank only.

The poo's have been normal from what I have seen, but I haven't really been paying much attention because as I said she has been fine.

The only other symptoms I can see is that her tummy is very thin and there seems to be kind of an indent type thing near her head. I can't get a picture of it, but it is on both sides and is right behind her eyes but up a little bit. Sorry about the bad description!!!

And I will feed her but not do anything else!!!
Thanks for your advise so far. I really appreciate it and I hope you guys will write back soon.

 

[electric yellow]

Can i ask what your tank size is and water stats arE?

Ive had lots of mollies and dont keep them now because they are such delicate fish to maintain. If she is swimming circles and has lost that much weight i would say she is near the time where she will fall asleep and wont wont wake up :\ Is she being bullied by the other fish in the tank? If you water stats are out by even a fraction mollie will find it difficult to cope.

Is the indent thing like a wound? Or just an indent?

 

[Truck]

do you add salt to your tank?

 

[Ally555]

I do not add salt to my tank.
My tank is 90 something litres.
She isn't being bullied from what I have seen.
The indent thing doesn't look like a wound it's just an indent.
I don't have a nitite or nitrate tester as I have never really needed one, but do have a ph and ammonia tester.
I'll go and test that now and write back in 10mins or so...

 

[Truck]

mollies are generally found in a brackish environment, and are more prone to disease in a freshwater one

 

[Ally555]

The ph is 7 - is normally kept at 7
The ammonia is 0

BTW after she was fed she didn't get a big tummy. It is still pretty much completely flat.

 

[Ally555]

When I woke up today she was sitting still inside the shipwreak but she was breathing.She came up to the top and I fed her. I think she ate the food but she still has a very flat tummy. I haven't seen her poo yet so I have not been able to see if she has white stringy poo.

BTW what is fish TB?

And,
Does anyone have any comments about my water stats or anything else?

 

[LauraFrog]

The water stats are fine. This isn't your fault, whatever it is. Unfortunately the mass production of fish for the aquarium trade has resulted in the weakening of their immune systems due to inbreeding and poor diet. Mollies in particular are prone to these problems when you keep them in freshwater. Unless you can find a way to put some salt in the water (which you can't do in that tank if you have neons) this may well keep happening. They are brackish water fish that have been sold by pet stores because they are pretty - it's the same kind of irresponsible attitude to the fish's welfare that leads them to sell clown loaches to people with ten gallon tanks, oscars and firemouths for communities, and guppies with such huge fins that they can barely swim.

It's actually astounding that the fish is still alive considering what condition she was in yesterday, so it does mean her chances of recovery are better than most fish that have what she's got, she's obviously stronger than most of the livebearers you can get these days.

The problem with your molly is either parasites or TB. Parasites often infest livebearers. They live in the intestines and eat all the food the fish can eat, removing it before the fish can absorb it, with the end result that the fish starves to death - the skinniness and the hollows behind the eyes both point to extreme starvation. There is an additional problem that once the fish is seriously weakened by the parasites (as it sounds like yours is) opportunistic bacteria often jump on board as well. I've had good results in platys isolating the affected fish and then treating first with antibiotics for three days and then with praziquantel (an antiparasitic) for two days, then five days in clean water with good feed, then another dose of prazi for two days, then return to the tank.

The other possibility is that she has fish TB. This is caused by a species of bacteria that slowly weakens the fish resulting in emaciation and eventual death. There are other symptoms like clamped fins and the humping of the spine, and degeneration of other bone tissue and organ function (which can be difficult to notice in such a small fish). By the time they get to this stage the best thing to do with a TB fish is to euthanise. If you cut open a fish that has died during late stage TB, there are lesions on the kidney, liver and most other major internal organs. They usually die when one of the important organs either fails or ruptures. If it's TB there is absolutely nothing you can do. It's totally incurable. If she dies, wrap the body in plastic and put it in the rubbish. Don't flush it or bury it, as the TB bacteria can be dangerous to other animals.

If you can get antibiotics, what I'd do is follow the course of treatment in the first paragraph. If that fails, it was TB, or it was already too late. Cramming food into her won't do anything much at this point because of the nature of the problem - either it will feed the parasites, or she will be unable to absorb it due to the TB. In either case, trying to feed her won't do any harm and if she gets some of the nutrients it may do some good.

It's a shame the prognosis isn't very good, but I have seen some pretty spectacular cures of this condition in the past, so I've got my fingers crossed for you. I hope she pulls through.

 

[Ally555]

Thanks for everyones help and advise, and especially Laurafrog for all the information and help in the last post. But everyone has been a big help and I really appreciate it. And I will make sure I keep everyone up to date with how my molly is going.

Laurafrog, when you said that you have had good results isolating the affected fish and treating do you mean in a separate tank. My problem is I do not have a spare tank apart from my small betta tank, and obviously I can't put her in there.

I feel bad when you say that she is starving and I can see how thin she is when I compare her to my other female molly who is around the same size. Is the illness that she has contagious? And If so, I have heard of people who don't have spare tanks keeping the sick fish in a bag floating on the top of the water. Should I do this, or is it cruel?

 

[LauraFrog]

How big is the betta tank? Usually when I have a sick fish that I need to treat, I isolate in a 2.5-5 gallon plastic container. It doesn't have to be a proper glass tank. When you're dealing with things like this, ammo-lock is a gift from heaven, you can keep fish in small and uncycled (even unfiltered) tanks for as long as is necessary. It's stuff you add from a bottle that converts ammonia into a non-toxic form, and one dose with a single fish would last about five days after which you would need to redose or change the water.

You can pick up a plastic container for about five bucks. It's heat that's the problem. You can keep the container in a heated room, or if you're in a warmer part of SA, it is summer so she might be right. If the temperature doesn't fall below 16C, she should be okay for a while like that. If not, a spare heater is a useful thing to have anyway (in case one fails on Saturday night...) and they're only about $15 from Big W. Make sure the heater does not touch the sides or bottom of a plastic tank as they have been known to melt.

If she has parasites it's likely that the whole tank has got them, so it's best to treat all of the fish as the parasite medication will not harm them or the tank cycle. However the bacterial infection that occurs is opportunistic and attacks only fish that are very weak, so that should not spread. If she has TB, it is not spread between living fish, but if she dies and the other fish nibble at the body (as fish often do) this is how they infect themselves. Also, if she dies and it's bacterial the illness-causing bacteria will release into the tank, and the large number of them may cause another weak fish to become sick (although this is unlikely). So if you lose her make sure you remove the body from the tank straight away.

Since the illness is not really contagious, there is no point isolating her unless you can treat her. You can't treat a fish in a plastic bag floating in the tank, at least, not easily, so I wouldn't bother. It's not cruel (if there's ammo-lock in the bag), it's just pointless in this case.

I should mention that if you do manage to get the medications you will almost certainly end up buying more than you need, as there dont' seem to be any single dose packs (this is how companies get rich). You're probably looking at about $12 in medications if you can get the six tablet blister packs (one tablet treats twenty litres or five gals). Then another $20 odd in equipment, plus ammo-lock if you dont' have any. It's not exactly economical to treat a single fish in a case like this when there isn't a guarantee of recovery. Most of the equipment is stuff you'll use again anyway, you should treat the main tank for parasites whether this fish survives or not, and if it was my fish I'd probably want to try. But I just thought I'd let you know that you will almost certainly spend more treating her than you paid for her. (this bothers some people).

 

[Ally555]

The betta tank is small - 2.5 gallons probably.

But it doesn't matter now. The poor girl died last night. She was sitting at the bottom of the tank and looked like she was having breathing problems. She'd have 1 breath, then wait a few seconds, take another few quick breaths. Then my other mollies started nibbling at her and she would just let them do it and the swim away after a while. This was at about 12:30 am, and I hadn't read your last post.I didn't know if she was contagious or not, but didn't want to risk the other fish trying to eat her when she was dead, so I put her in a spare bag at the top of the tank and went to bed. I wasn't expecting her to be alive this morning and I was right.

Thanks for the info about just using a plastic container though and I will remember it if I ever have a problem like this again. And I would say I am in the warmer parts of SA (well today anyway). It's meant to be 41 degrees celcius and refuse to go outside today.

About treating the tank. If I get a medicine for my fish, firstly, what one would I get? and secondly, I am using a algae medicine thing right now that gets rid of algae. If I use a medicine while using the algae thing will I have problems?

Thanks for everyones help but I guess it just wasn't meant to be. She was a good fighter though, you got to give her that.