ejgdi

Thanks for the pointers, everyone. I've kept a close eye on her over the last few days. The swelling has gone down and her scales are laying flat again. The white area seems to be healing as well. I'm going to keep an eye on her for a while in case it's columnaris, but given that it seems to be healing, I'm hopeful that I won't have to treat.

One of my Black Mollies gave birth over night. Yesterday she was huge and I noticed a whitish blotch on her left side. This morning she was much thinner and I've found 27 fry so far. Her side is still white and from above I can see her scales are slightly lifted in that area. She's still active, and has an appetite. The male has been on her a lot the last week. Attached is a photo from last night before she gave birth with a decent view of the concerning spot and another from today. Her gills are white, but so are the other female's and I think they have been since I got them. The spot doesn't seem any larger today. I understand that raised scales is often a sign of dropsy, but I'm not clear on what it means when it's an isolated spot. The tank is a 40B with a built in AIO sump. Total water volume is probably about 30 gallons. Params are pH: 7.8 GH: 14 KH: 6 Nitrate: 8 Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Water Temperature: 78 Thr nitrogen params and pH are pretty stable. Hardness isn't perfectly stable yet but doesn't swing dramatically. Temperature is controlled by an adjustment heater plugged into a temp controller, so is also very stable. Population is 2 female BM, 1 male BM, 4 juvenile female platies and 2 male platies. There are ramshorn snails and it's medium heavily planted. Tank is a few months old. I'm hoping you'll say the spot is an injury or a symptom of having been so pregnant, but I'm afraid you'll say it's dropsy and already too late. I appreciate any advice you may have. Pregnant last night: No longer pregnant today: Edit: updated number of fry from 23 to 27.

Thank you both for the advice and kind words. I suspect @Colu is right. I think I'll give him one more day to see if there is any sign of hope.

I have a male black molly with pretty severe pop eye that only seems to be getting worse. I'm not sure what to try next. I have a 40gallon breeder planted tank with an AIO kit. Substrate is eco-complete. I have co2 injection. There is a large piece of Mopani wood and a few granite rocks for decoration. It's pretty full of plants right now. It is populated by ramshorn snails, some pond snails, and 4 black mollies that I got at the LFS a month ago, 2 males, 2 females. The patient in question is one of the males. Until recently he has been relatively aggressive, particularly around meal time. A little over 2 weeks ago his left eye started to swell. Because of his aggression, that it was only one eye, and none of the other fish showed any symptoms, I assumed it was an injury and decided to just keep an eye on it. About a week ago the right eye started to swell. At that point I pulled him and put him in a 5 gallon hospital tank for treatment. I dosed maracyn and aquarium salt. Since he is a molly and can naturally handle salty water, I started at a level 2 treatment of 1tbsp/gal. It was introduced with a slow drip over a course of hours. I stopped feeding him for 5 days. Within a couple of days he started to get really lethargic. 2 days ago he started resting at the surface towards the filter wall. His left eye began to grow white at the bottom. He's still breathing and his gills are still moving, but he had stopped responding to my movement. After some experimentation, I am reasonably certain he is now completely blind. Yesterday was the end of his 5th day, so I decided to feed him and do a water change. He couldn't find the food. I ended up putting a LOT of food floating on the surface so he could bump into it. When he did he'd try to get it with his mouth but mostly couldn't manage to find what he felt. He ate maybe 4 bites before I scooped out the excess and performed the change. After the water change, which includes salt, I added some ich-x since the maracyn didn't seem to help and in case the white spot is fungal. As of now he's back to sitting against the wall and the surface barely moving. And I'm not feeling confident about what the next move is. It may be worth noting that the other three mollies appear healthy and happy. Parameters: pH: between 7 and 7.5 Nitrates: <5 Hardness: ~14dGH (I have had some trouble keeping this steady) Nitrite: 0 Ammonia: 0 KH/Buffer: ~6 Water Temperature: 78F I do struggle a bit with the GH. I use RODI water and supplement with Equilibrium. The display tank gets co2 injection. In general though my dGH stays within a few degrees of target. I do a 50% WC weekly, and top off with filtered water. This photo was taken an hour ago. The right eye is about the same size, but not yet showing any white. I hate losing animals in my care, even when they have been jerks. Any advice on where I go from here is appreciated. If he gets to a point of no return, I'd rather euthanize than force him to suffer.