Pregnant or sick

[Samanthabea]

This is the fish I've been questioning I've had ich in my tank severely and it's trying to make a comeback now I know other infections usually happen after and/or during but have not had any experience with swim bladder disease before and is what I'm most afraid this is(basically I'm looking for the best alternative or see how aggressive in treatment I should be) I have treated them once for fungal infection per instructions on the ich treatment bottle but the bloating still persists

[Fish Folk]

Hmm... can you try to post a video? From the photos, it’s hard to see any major issues...

[Dwayne Brown]

What are your water parameters? And what type of fish do you have in your aquarium?

[Samanthabea]

I've tried videos none of them will upload it says the file is to big I have 4 ghost shrimp and 3 silver mollies a platty and a blue green mollie with red on the tail( can't remember the specific breed)

[Samanthabea]

The tank is 6.5 gallons and I know that's smaller than ideal but it's the only option I had at the time to completely change the gravel to something more ideal for the shrimp the Walmart gravel was hurting them(one had bits of his legs gone and I didn't have that issue before as well as trying to remove all ich)

Edited March 26, 2021 by Samanthabea
Better explanation

[Hobbit]

Is the fish showing any signs of swim bladder disorder? Is it having trouble swimming or keeping itself upright? If it’s acting the same as the others, I’d take a wait and see approach. If you’re worried about bloating you can also fast the fish for a day or two and see if that helps.

[quikv6]

Okay...being you have mollies and other livebearers, I am a tad concerned from the test strip. It looks like you have very low PH, and 0 KH, which may indicate a PH crash. The stress from that could definitely spark an outbreak of something else.

I think crushed coral would really benefit your tank. It should raise the KH some, and prevent a PH crash. It should also slightly raise the PH to a range that the mollies would prefer.

[Samanthabea]

Once in a while when they are in the current of the filter one of them has trouble all the fish came from the same shop but as I said before I have no idea really about swim bladder disease except the general symptoms and I had added tablets to lower the ph a couple weeks ago(at the time the ph was at 8.4) but it held at 7.8 for the longest time did that throw everything out of whack

[Dwayne Brown]

Lets start with the good. Your fish are still alive, And your water is hard. The bad, your tank is pretty small for mollies. I have a few questions though No.1 where di you get the mollies from? if it was an lfs I would call them and ask where they usually import them from. I personally have not kept any but while researching them I found out that they either need super hard water, or some are imported from places where they are bred in soft water so you can keep them in soft. Also Mollies in general seem to be pretty fragile, this is mostly because a lot of them are bred in hard brackish water then get transferred to fresh water and it really messes them up. Also if you could test the water that comes out of your tap that would help to, that way we know if any of the parameters are natural to your environment. I know you must be thinking no ones water can be an extreme but they actually can, some people have super hard well water. or some people like me are surprised that you have to add crushed coral to a tetra tank because your waters hardness reads 0.

[Samanthabea]

We have hard water definitely I'll test it though when I have time after work I used spring water for the last water change with the last ich treatment because I didn't have any that had sat long enough for the chlorine(that probly contributed to the ph drop I just thought of that)to dissapate and I got them from petco ya the tank is a little small and I didn't like that I wanted a 10 gallon but this was all they had at walmart at the time I was going to get a slightly bigger one this weekend and have this one for a hospital tank but I was doing a complete change of the gravel because the ich was so bad and the gravel I had hurt one of my shrimps leg I did add aquarium salt as well last week

[Hobbit]

I think @quikv6and @Dwayne Brown are onto something with the pH and KH. Maybe the water change with spring water after using the pH lowering tablets just dropped things too far. Crushed coral or crushed oyster shell (sold for chickens) will help get your KH and pH back up.

[Samanthabea]

And I believe about the water I'm changing the 55 they were in to saltwater(I know I'm a newbie but jumping in but taking it slow just never had had many issues like this before) and was going to buy a ro filter and buy the water for the 1st fill if the tap water test really hard should I do a mix of spring and tap water instead of keeping on using the tablets

[Dwayne Brown]

I would definitely look into buying a bottle of dechlorinator to use. Mollies are ine of those fish throat can be very sensitive to large changes in oh and hardness. Any idea where the store you bought them from got them from? If these mollies were originally bred is soft water then the hard water will be causing problems. If they were bred in really hard water you would want to raise your hardness. And if the were bred in brackish water there is really nothing you can do.

[Samanthabea]

Just wondering about an alternative instead of having to do add chemicals or powders constantly

[Samanthabea]

I do have dechlorinator I usually have the water sit for a week and I can call them I'm not sure where they get their fish from

[Samanthabea]

Just called them they said they kept their mollies in the general parameters for the breed 

[Samanthabea]

Other than that the right person to ask wasn't there

[Dwayne Brown]

I definantly would just stuck to adding dechlorinator to tap water. If your worried about it harming your fish I have kept very sensitive fish and they were fine. Also what part of the U.S do you live in some places have harder or softer water with othe minerals mixed in. As far a general parameters that can vary. So gor example I was considering buying white mollies myself I called a local fish store called the seattle fish store the guy there told me that he got his mollies from from Israel where they were bred in soft water. While some mollies that are bred in hard water would be good in your area. The vast majority are bred in Mexico and central america this is a problem because water there is super expensive however the molly will be unhealthy but its offspring will be fine. The problem occurs when they are imported to the us and put in fresh water. It would almost be like if your parents where from northern alaska they got moved to southern florida you grew up in southern florida and then you moved to the arctic. Now imagine your an animal that cant control its response to the envirement through clothes and you can see wherr the problem is.

[Samanthabea]

Nebraska and I'll make sure to do that next water change I've just always let the water sit and it was fine except for bettas always bought their water

[Dwayne Brown]

I know nothing about any fish supply in nebraska but do you have a large selection of both chain and local fish stores? I live in washington state and we have tins of chains and local fish stores. The bottom line is the more choice of stores the more you can customize for your own setup if you only have a petco that probably sells mollies from brackish water I dont know what to tell you. But if you have dozens of fish stores each with fish bred locally or in different areas you can get fish that will be fine in your setup.

[Dwayne Brown]

Also I had bad ich and fin rot I wouldnt recomend using medications as they can adversely affect the fish. I fixed it by doing regular weekly water changes used a gravel cleaner but most importantly i started using aquarium salt. It works really well it just dehydrates parasites on the fishes skin but not the fish itself its also super cheap. 

[Samanthabea]

In my area there isn't really a lot of options I think I found 3 local stores but otherwise it's petco or petsmart if my cat would stop unplugging the heater that would help to with the heat treatment I have to constantly check it she likes to play with the cord but it has never dropped below 75 but the salt definitely improved them much more than the treatment I had bought

[Dwayne Brown]

Sorry you dont have a lot of options. In my area the petcos and petsmarts are really clean almost no dead fish because they have to compete against the local stores. I would whatch the mollies for a week and see what happens I doubt they would be soft water as you usually have to pay a premium for them and they are usually only sold in areas with soft water. So whatch them and see if they improve. Also did the platy have ich?

[Samanthabea]

At one point he was the easiest to treat

[Dwayne Brown]

Everything that you have said points to the mollies being bred in brackish water. The fact that they arent doing to well and also that the platy which has the same "general parameters" as mollies was easy to treat for ich tells me that your mollies are not responding well to their envirement. Your parameters are mostly fine and if your platy is fine as well I am led to assume that your mollies were originially bred in brackish water and have now been transfered to fresh. Unfortunately i have no solution for you. Its a fairly common issue. The only way to resolve it seems to be to make a species only brakish aquarium for the mollies. Hopes this helps