Help my molly is sick

tinner777

came home from work today and my balloon molly is lying at the bottom of the tank, spinning around and sometimes making a mad dash to the top of the tank but then falling down again.
He.or she, is living with a platy and a loach, i think, in a 60 litre tank, set up five weeks ago.

Checked water using strips, all seems ok, no2 no3 in normal limits, temp ok, o2 stone and plenty of bubbles. Is there anything i can do?

The other fish seem ok

Kalahari

Hey, sorry to hear about your fish - it sounds like a swimbladder problem. This is usually caused by the water so i'd recommend a partial water change and if you could, get a liquid test kit like API as those test strips are often incorrect and can be misleading about the water quality. Did you cycle the tank before you added the fish? Do you have an ammonia test kit? The ammonia and nitrite should be zero, and nitrate below 20.

Another possibility is constipation causing swimbladder problems, so you could try feeding it a skinned pea. If you have seen the fish passing normal amounts of waste since it's been swimming strangely then this probably isn't the cause. If the cause is a bacterial infection you're going to need to medicate.

So try a partial water change and feeding a thawed pea to see if it improves the situation. If you have some, add a little bit of stress coat to the tank as well. Best of luck.

tinner777

well the poor little geezer died...
So what next, tank has been set up four weeks,

Kalahari

Sorry to hear that. Really the best thing to do next is get a liquid test kit so you can get accurate readings on your water and make sure it is cycled and that the parameters aren't at a harmful level. If it has only been set up for 4 weeks it probably isn't cycled, so that's probably the cause of the swimbladder problem. Once the water is sorted, keep an eye on the remaining fish for a couple of weeks for any signs of disease. And then if the water remains fine and the remaining fish are healthy you could try adding a new fish.

tinner777

thanks

Barr

tinner777 wrote: »

came home from work today and my balloon molly is lying at the bottom of the tank, spinning around and sometimes making a mad dash to the top of the tank but then falling down again.
He.or she, is living with a platy and a loach, i think, in a 60 litre tank, set up five weeks ago.

Checked water using strips, all seems ok, no2 no3 in normal limits, temp ok, o2 stone and plenty of bubbles. Is there anything i can do?

The other fish seem ok

I know his passed away at this stage but problem sounded very like a swimbladder problem.

Balloon fish seem to suffer from this more tha regular types for some reason.