"Elaine T" wrote in message
om...
Ionizer wrote:
I've got four small white balloon mollies in a ten-gallon planted tank
at 79 degrees F which has been running for a few weeks now. I used a
good percentage of water from our main tank to start this one up,
which I think may have helped me so far avoid an ammonia or nitrite
spike. Both ammonia and nitrite levels are virtually zero, and I've
done a weekly 10% water change this afternoon. But one of the mollies
is quite lethargic- spending a lot of time near the bottom in one
corner or another. She (he?) becomes briefly active at feeding time
but then goes down to the bottom to rest again. There is no visible
sign of disease that I can see- bright white colour, no signs of ich
or injury. The other three are fine.

So what can I do to help this molly?

Many thanks,
Ian.
First, add 1 tsp/5 gal salt if you have none in the tank. That
shouldn't hurt your plants and other fish and a bit of salt helps
mollies tremendously. The other thing you could try is feeding an
antiparasitic food (guessing parasitic over antibacterial because
mollies tend to get parasites). I saw one made by Jungle today at
PetSmart that looked pretty good.

Maybe NetMax will have some better ideas.

--
Elaine T


Not really. I sometimes raise the water temperature to see if it makes
any difference, but otherwise I think you've covered all the bases (as
usual ;~).

Balloon mollies are at such a physical line-bred extreme of organ
compression, that there is a high(er) level of mortality. This means
ailments are more often mutagenesis-related rather than pathogenic, which
really dampens my efforts and energy at devising treatments, and if
anything, it pushes me more towards 'homeopathic' remedies such as
isolating the fish in an Epson salt mix (unconstipate them), sea salts
and changes in temperature.
--
www.NetMax.tk