# Mystery Mollie Illness



## swervnmervn (Nov 4, 2009)

I have 3 female mollies and one male mollie in a 75L tank (with a couple of neon tetras also). The tank has only been established for 3 months but there have been no probs at all and the water quality has been fine (pH 7.0, Nitrogen 0.0, ammonia 0.0, nitrate, 5.0 mg/L). The mollies have been procreating like mad (5 broods in that time) so I thought they must be pretty happy. However about a week ago I noticed one of the female mollies was looking ill. Her behaviour was fine and hadn't changed at all and she was still feeding as normal. However, the signs were thickened scales on her gills and head. She is orange but the 'infected' scales are darker in colour, more deep orange or red but not bloodlike. The scales are not raised like in dropsy but they appear slightly raised just because they look thickened and somewhat deformed. She is not bloated or showing any other signs apart from the strange scales. At the time I panicked, increased the temp from 26 degrees celcius to 28 degrees, did a 30% water change and added tropical fish salt (5g per 15L), and added Multi-purpose medication (methylene blue, acriflavine and malachite green). She didn't appear to deteriorate afterwards and was still behaving completely normal but her scales didnt improve. I observed her for several days and then noticed another female mollie started displaying similar symptoms to a lesser degree. Then today I noticed a very small area of the 'inflamed' scales on the original mollie had started to appear white and almost fluffy so i thought it might be a secondary infection (??). Also, it looks as though she has lost a scale on her head. So, I went to the local petstore and they couldn't offer any advice because they didn't know so I came home and gave both mollies a salt and multipurpose medication bath for approx 3 minutes. I'm not sure what they have, and whether I am doing more damage than good in trying to help them. For the record, we still have about 30 babies and all are absolutely fine. Can anyone help at all because most people I talk to you seem to think its not any of the common ailments and I am completely lost!?


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

How are they acting? Discoloration aside, does this seem to be bothering them in any way?
Creamsicle orange isn't a normal color for mollies in nature, of course, and my guess is, if the fish are otherwise fine, that you are simply seeing the fish starting to get their hidden colors as they age. Or not. This is one of those times a picture sure would help.


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## swervnmervn (Nov 4, 2009)

Hi and thanks! It definitely doesn't appear to be bothering them in any other way at all. I don't think its their natural colours coming out because it definitely doesn't look 'normal' as such. The scales definitely look inflamed and malformed. I have noticed the 3rd female with minor signs today (only a few scales have discoloured whereas the whole head of the original female is discoloured). I took some photos a few days ago but they didn't accurately depict what was going on but will try to take some more today so I can post them online. Thanks, I appreciate any input!


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

Scale Protrusion

http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/information/Diseases.htm#Scale Protrusion 
Symptoms: Protruding scales without body bloat.

Scale protrusion is essentially a bacterial infection of the scales and/or body. A variety of bacterium could be the culprit here, as can unkempt aquarium conditions.
An effective treatment is to add an antibiotic to the food. With flake food, use about 1% of antibiotic and carefully mix it in. If you keep the fish hungry they should eagerly eat the mixture before the antibiotic dissipates. Antibiotics usually come in 250 mg capsules. If added to 25 grams of flake food, one capsule should be enough to treat dozens of fish. A good antibiotic is chloromycetin (chloramphenicol). Or use tetracycline. If you feed your fish frozen foods or chopped foods, try to use the same ratio with mixing. As a last resort add at most 10 mg per liter of water. Also, if unkempt conditions are the suspected cause, correct it


Does this help?


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