# Help! I gotta save my fat little Mollie if I can.



## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

I have a black sailfin mail balloon molly that was pestering the two mollie females so badly that I moved him to a different tank with 9 small juvenile dalmation mollies. The little mollies ganged up on him and beat him up. I found him this morning attached to the side of the filter intake looking like a goner. He had a badly damaged eye and some gill damage. I moved him to a hospital tank and added some salt. Now he has white fuzzy growth on the side that looks for all the world like ich. He was just about a goner this morning but this evening, after a day in the hospital tank he seems like he just might live. How do I confirm if this is ich.. i haven't got the medication yet. I'm going to get some tomorrow but I can't tell if this is ich. It's more like puss than the crystaline or cottony stuff that I have seen in pictures of ich. I can't get a clear picture as he's wobbling around in the tank. Stay with just the salt and the waiting? Raise temperature? I'm upset with myself for moving him. He was such a happy little guy, too happy really, with two girls to chase. The little critter is a hurtin unit now.

Sigh.


Warren


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## Cory_Dad (Apr 18, 2008)

Well, it could just be a bacterial infection. Without a picture it's hard to say.

If he got beat up then it won't be parasites and fungus could have taken hold but I'd bet on an infection.

If it is, I don't know which medication to suggest.

Is there a doctor in the house?!

If no one answers, a lot of people suggest Melafix for bacteria but I've heard it's a so-so product. The good thing about it though is that you're not likely to overdose with it.

Good luck.


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## Enki (Mar 26, 2008)

Hope the little guys is doing well.

umm possibly three things can happen, and I agree with Cory Dad in that its hard to tell without a pic, but heres what I think.

1) Inspect the fish carefully, and see if there are any wounds at the areas with the puss, if it is, then it could just be the fish's normal immune response to the open wounds. in this case, do a partial water change (no more than 30%), add salt, which I think u are already. and bring the temp up to about 80F.

2) You can suspect a bacterial infection if you see any of the following symptoms:
Fin Rot Excessive Gill Movement
Red Streaks Excessive Hiding
White Film Listlessness

then you would need to:
Raise temperature to 80 degrees, Do a partial water change. Add one of the following antibiotics:
* Maracyn ( Fin rot, white growths)
* Maracyn II ( Eye cloud, sores, red streaks, popeye,
bloat, fin rot)
* Furan-2 ( Mouth fungus, fin rot, sores)
* Tetracycline ( Hospital tanks, use for serious infections: will discolor water)
* Jungle Fungus Eliminator

3)White Fuzzy Growths on fish

then you would need to:
Do a partial water change. Add one of the following:
Fungus Cure
MarOxy (also prevents fungus on eggs)
Nox Ich ( has limited affect on fungus)

the latter two are from this site, its quite usefull in my experiences.
http://www.elmersaquarium.com/c107problemchart.htm

hope that helps, and keep us posted


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## lili (Dec 15, 2007)

I would say it's Columnaris after the injury and stress.
To cover your bases do MAracy 2 treatment. 
Increase aeration because Columnaris hates it.
L

PS: you can do a combo Maracyn (gram positive bacteria) +Maracyn2 (grame negative like Columnaris).


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## lili (Dec 15, 2007)

KhuliLoachFan said:


> Now he has white fuzzy growth on the side that looks for all the world like ich.
> 
> ........................
> It's more like puss than the crystaline or cottony stuff that I have seen in pictures of ich.
> ...


I am confused .... Ich doesn't look like fungus .... Columnaris looks like fungus. Raising temp helps medication to act but Columnaris grows faster in warm water (more than 78). 
I would keep water at 78. 
L

PS: I sound like an expert in Columnaris    .... unfortunatelly ..... I had it several times in one of the tanks, always in a dwarf gourami.


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## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

Today it totally looks like a classical Ich outbreak. I went to Big Als, stupidly without checking here first, and they sold me a Seachem Metronidazole. I can find ZERO mention on the packaging of it being used for Ich. What SHOULD I use to treat Ich in a Mollie? I added salt to 1 gsl hospital tank already and raised temp to 82.

Warren


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## Cory_Dad (Apr 18, 2008)

KhuliLoachFan said:


> Today it totally looks like a classical Ich outbreak. I went to Big Als, stupidly without checking here first, and they sold me a Seachem Metronidazole. I can find ZERO mention on the packaging of it being used for Ich. What SHOULD I use to treat Ich in a Mollie? I added salt to 1 gsl hospital tank already and raised temp to 82.
> 
> Warren


Not having I good time of it I see...

You can use Merdel CopperSafe or Maracide for ich. The CopperSafe is hard on your plants though.

Good luck.


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## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

*it's a bad day for my mollys. sigh.*

My favourite male black balloon sailfin molly has an ich outbreak almost 1/8 his own body size coming from one eye and one gill where yesterday it was just kind of looking beat up.

My favourite white female balloon molly also got beat up (by an angel I should never have had in her tank... they seem gentle when you get them but they get more agressive as they get older) and is now lying in the hospital tank upside down and hasn't moved in several hours.

It's been Molly-on-molly and Angel-on-molly violence week here. If these are the non-agressive community fish, then I'm glad I haven't attempted anything more difficult yet.

I've learned a lot about how easily stressed-out fish die this week. Calm and harmony means long fishy life. Being pestered and not having sufficient hiding places means death. So I'm learning. Sigh. But I have one and possibly two dead fish, two of my favourites.

I've never been able to keep a white molly alive more than three months. This was my third one. No more until I get a much more peaceful tank. The little white mollies are roly-poly, move slowly, and can't get away from agressors very well.

Turns out that Ichthypythisomethingizobofrobzobrogglosis (whatever the long name of Ich is) is on the list of medications on this Seachem stuff I bought. But the folks believe that anything above 0.01 point type is too easy to read, so I missed it. The medication is the size of a roll of lifesavers and didn't come in a box, and had no printed instructions. Only three lines of the world's smallest type in five languages. Thanks Seachem.

W


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

KhuliLoachFan said:


> Turns out that Ichthypythisomethingizobofrobzobrogglosis (whatever the long name of Ich is) is on the list of medications on this Seachem stuff I bought. But the folks believe that anything above 0.01 point type is too easy to read, so I missed it. The medication is the size of a roll of lifesavers and didn't come in a box, and had no printed instructions. Only three lines of the world's smallest type in five languages. Thanks Seachem.
> 
> W


Hi Khuli,

I'm sorry to hear you're having a crappy time, I know what it's like!!!

Here's a link to Seachem's medications: http://seachem.com/products/medications.html

You should be able to find all the information you need.

Fingers crossed for you!

Tabatha


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## gunnerx (Mar 20, 2008)

For Ich, you can raise the temperature to help battle against it.


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## NuclearTech (Mar 23, 2008)

My thoughts exactly.

I had Ich once in a 20 gallon and I just jacked the heat up to 30 for 10 days. I added extra aeration since warmer water has less dissolved O2 in it and vacuumed the gravel regularly with more water changes. The Ich was on my cardinals and I had 3 albino corys in the tank along with plants, so I was worried about adding any meds.

I caught the Ich early, and when I started to up the temp I noticed that half of my cardinals had spots. It took about 5 days to get rid of the spots and then I maintained the higher temp for another 5 days to try and be sure the Ich had gone through it's life cycle. It worked, I lost no fish, and it's been 3 months since the outbreak without a recurrence.

Whatever works well for you is great, and I'm not sure if just heat will help if your Molly is so heavily afflicted, but one of my cardinals had at least 6 or 7 spots on him and he turned out fine.

Good luck !


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## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

*now it looks like fungus.*

Well the Ich guess was way off... its fungus I think...

Here's a pic.

http://tinyurl.com/54aslc

Anybody concur?

W


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## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

*the white cottony thing fell off.*

The fungus fell off my molly. I did another dose of metronidazole and then let it be for 30 minutes and then diluted the hospital tank water a bit because I over dosed. Looks like metronidazole and salt helped. Although this is not the correct medication, if this is a fungus.

W


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## NuclearTech (Mar 23, 2008)

Ya, wow, soooo not Ich.

My fingers are crossed for you...


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## lili (Dec 15, 2007)

It's close to head-back area .... could be Columnaris (saddle).

"Columnaris looks like fungus. Raising temp helps medication to act but Columnaris grows faster in warm water (more than 78). 
I would keep water at 78. "

"I would say it's Columnaris after the injury and stress.
To cover your bases do MAracy 2 treatment. 
Increase aeration because Columnaris hates it.
You can do a combo Maracyn (gram positive bacteria) +Maracyn2 (grame negative like Columnaris)."

You can try Furanase. It's supposed to be very good for Columnaris. For my betta worked. Not for the Gourami. The gourami responded better to Maracyn2. Depends on the strain of Columnaris (it look like slow developing one).

L


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## lili (Dec 15, 2007)

How is the molly ?
My best !
L


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## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

*my molly is gettin better, I think!*

He's pulling through. The columnaris or fungus has eaten one of his fins away to a stub, so he's had some navigational trouble, and he has a black slightly off-color sunken area where his eye was formerly so I think that his eye is damaged and not functioning on one side (it was covered with a large chunk of white cottony growth which fell off after two days). I used antibiotic, salt, and higher temperature. I think the biggest thing that encourages me is his fins are up high (he's a sailfin balloon molly) and he positively danced around with glee in the hospital tank yesterday when I fed him a few bloodworms.

I've noticed the other black molly (his partner, and a female) is harassing the platies and honey gouramis non-stop these days. Is that normal when a female is gravid, which I suspect she is? Maybe she's crabby because she misses her fishy-hubby.

Yay

W


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