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Old April 15th 06, 07:08 PM posted to rec.aquaria.freshwater.misc
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Default Sick molly question

swarvegorilla wrote:
Mollies are often raised in dirt ponds this makes them suseptable to
everything from parasitic worms, thru to piscine tb. Black mollies get
cancers and tumours.
They also benefit from added marine salt.
That said they are great fish and prolific in breeding once you nail a few
things.
First the diet, bloodworm is a good substitute for much of what they eat in
the wild. I have found spirulina flake to also be very good at getting
mollies to look their best.
With a good diet and a few feeds a day you should be able to bulk him back
up. Adding salt is harder if you have salt intolerant species in there like
corys?. Anyway a slight raise in tank water salt levels could help long
term.


He's in quarantine. No worries about salt or meds. The mollies are in
an outdoor tank with a fair amount of algae, so I feed flakes, dried
bloodworms, and various frozen foods. Plus they get springtails,
snails, and whatever bugs drop in the water.

As an actual med tho I think either a bath in full strength (same temp)
marine water or use a different method. I think the fluke meds you had
sounded ok, check the ingredients? if it's got (sp?!) praziquantral in it,
it should work. Consider trying to remove all the snails from tank as well.
If the fish dies try to get to it as quick as possible. Wear gloves, snip
the gill casing off and snip off a small piece of gill filiment. If you can
put that under a microscope or even a kick ass magnifying glass, or zoom in
on a 4 meg digital photo.... then you should be a able to see some wormy
things on the gills. Otherwise it's internal.

Or another angle 'metronidazole'... why do you have this and clout? has
tank had a 'bloat' wipe out before? It could be indeed a tb case. Does the
fish have any open unhealed wounds on it? any other fish with deformed
spines? If so don't be putting hands in water if you have any open
wounds.... fish sounds like somethings sapping it. In that case yes try
med the food with the metronidazole.


I had a sick discus with HLLE and wasting in a completely different
tank. I suspected hexamita. Unfortunately I couldn't get metronidazole
for a while so tried clout. I finally got the metronidazole but it was
too late.

No signs of fish TB elsewhere. Other fish in the tank have been fine.
Something is clearly sapping the fish, but I'm guessing worms.

Anyway not trying ta make ya paranoid.
fluke tabs would prob work in a bath, even if ya just float an icecream
container half full of tank water with an airstone and dose of meds.
Plan B of course is just to 'remove' the fish from the tank. Can always get
another molly.
:-)


I'll try full marine, then fluke tabs if that doesn't work. Mollies are
pretty easy to find, but so is salt water. ;-)

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