# Black Mollie sick...with what?



## hldcrstn (Dec 28, 2008)

All you serious hobbists out there! I have a black sailfin mollie. we've had her for about 10 months ago. She's had 4 batches of fry and she is in mid pregnancy for the next. Now the problem is, she is sick. when we got up this morning, she was kind of sitting there, and can't keep herself down, she keeps going up to the suface. Also, he tail looks more like a sidways U now, which is shouldn't. My question is, what the heck does she have, and is there a way we can fix it. We don't have a quartine tank, but she is the only one affected and we have 7 other mollies. 6 of which are her offspring. If you need a pic, I can get one, but it might take a bit for me to get it going


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Keeps bobbing up to the surface and can't stay down?

Swimbladder infection. There is excessive gas and it makes her float. I say infection because of the tail-rot description, but there could be other causes. I'm pretty sure it's infection, though, and it's bad.

Curing it... well, this sort of thing tends to be terminal, simply because the fish usually doesn't last long enough for the medicine to work. However, you can always try some strong antibiotics made for fish infections, and that includes feeding medicated fishfood that has medicine in it for fastest results.

By all means, get that fish out of that tank and put it somewhere else, preferably just a couple of degrees warmer than her current tank. The addition of a bit of epsom salts ( look that up for more details ) can help with the floating if it's being caused by something else like some simple blockage. 

Do you have any salt in your main molly tank's water, or are you keeping them in straight freshwater? Mollies do best with some salt, as it helps prevent this very sort of thing.


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