What's Wrong With My Mollies?

[Hollymollymoo]

Hi, just got back from first holiday (one week) since setting up tank in October and all 3 of my black Mollies look awful! I left a feeding block which had completely disappeared when we got back and the tank which is 60 litres looked filthy. Two of the Mollies are covered in white spots which I'm assuming is white spot!!!!! The other is swimmimg vertically, has no spots and apart from being upside down looks fine. I would appreciate some advice, thanks.

 

[WILDER]

I would do a gravel vac and water change immediately, then add the whitespot med, increase aeration, and turn temp up gradually to 30, if the fish is swimming upside down sadly it's in a bad way.
Also does the whitespot look like grains of salt.

 

[tttnjfttt]

Those blocks have alot of junk in them, and are notorious for cloging up filters. Your diagnosis of white spot does sound right. Since your tank is such a mess, you need to test your water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH (please post these results) Begin cleaning up your tank, no more than 25% water changes at a time. Depending on what other fish you have in there, you may be able to add salt which can help. Also, slowly increase the temp to 82-84* F, increasing no more than 2 degreese F per day.

For future reference, adult fish can easily go a week with no food, which is often a better choice than using the cubes.

 

[Hollymollymoo]

Hi, just got back from first holiday (one week) since setting up tank in October and all 3 of my black Mollies look awful! I left a feeding block which had completely disappeared when we got back and the tank which is 60 litres looked filthy. Two of the Mollies are covered in white spots which I'm assuming is white spot!!!!! The other is swimmimg vertically, has no spots and apart from being upside down looks fine. I would appreciate some advice, thanks.

Thanks for advice, the spots are like grains of salt but they also have cloudy eyes.

 

[tttnjfttt]

Cloudy eyes can be from several things, including poor water quality. I would first begin by checking for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and the pH level, and doing water changes to clean up the mess.

 

[WILDER]

Just a symtom of the whitespot it should clear once you get water quality back on track, and get on with the med, good luck.

 

[Hollymollymoo]

Those blocks have alot of junk in them, and are notorious for cloging up filters. Your diagnosis of white spot does sound right. Since your tank is such a mess, you need to test your water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH (please post these results) Begin cleaning up your tank, no more than 25% water changes at a time. Depending on what other fish you have in there, you may be able to add salt which can help. Also, slowly increase the temp to 82-84* F, increasing no more than 2 degreese F per day.

For future reference, adult fish can easily go a week with no food, which is often a better choice than using the cubes.

Thanks for advice, just checked the levels, excuse my lack of knowledge but the stick is reading 100 for N03 (this has always been 0 before), 0 for N02 and PH is 7.6. Does that make sense?

 

[WILDER]

Yes it mean the tank wan't some maintance don't go mad, as you are going to have to do it gradually, as a big swing back will shock the fish, so gradually start doing some water changes about 20%.

 

[tttnjfttt]

Also, you don't have a test kit for ammonia. Take a water sample to the LFS and ask them to test that for you. I agree with wilder, that is a rather large swing in nitrates, which is probably the source of the stress.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Are the mollys the only fish in the tank? If so, i would also add some aquarium salt as well to the meds .

 

[Hollymollymoo]

Are the mollys the only fish in the tank? If so, i would also add some aquarium salt as well to the meds .

Hi, no I also have platties (or is it Platys), tiger barbs and corydoras.

 

[WILDER]

No salt then with the corys, good luck.

Can you remove the corys to an issolation tank, as they don't tend to get whitespot plus they can be funny with whitespot meds.