Millinium

A week and a half ago:
I brought home a molly fish that was glancing off of objects in the tank. He also seemed to have a problem where he would lean back sometimes like he can't control himeslf. Oh well, I returned him.

Few days later:
one of my other mollies start doing the same thing.... Thinking it might be ICH I raise the temperature to 86 degrees, then my gourami starts doing it... I raise the temperature to 88 degrees. I also do 30-50% water changes a day.

Last Friday (4 days ago):
I added 1 Tbs of salt per 5 gallon. Every one of the fish that were originally glancing are still doing it plus I notice some of my others are starting to as well. One of my fish died from dropsy after i added the salt, but I think that may be unrelated to the outbreak since it was a kinda new fish.

My problem is that none of them are showing any symptoms for anything except for the glancing. So even though I am treating them for ICH, I have no idea if this is even the right diagnosis. I want to use meds but I can't since I don't know what it is. This is really frustrating to me. I am worried that by using the heat salt treatment I may just be making the disease spread slower making it take longer for it to show me it's true symptoms. If it was ich shouldn't it be showing itself by now/dying out, since it's life cycle should only be 4-5 days at my temperature. It's been over a week.

Lucy

Hi welcome to FishLore
If it's ich, your temp only needs to be raised to 84F, but you need to keep it there for two weeks. Increase aeration to make up for less oxygen in warmer water.
You'll need to do thorough gravel vacs to pick up all the ich spore in the gravel.

Personally, I don't use salt and wouldn't recommend it.
Is the tank cycled? What are your readings for ammonia nitrite and nitrate?

I'm sorry, I know you didn't ask, but your betta should really be in a 5g tank by it's self.
Most bettas don't make good community fish, especially with Gouramis (they're not listed in your aquarium info)
What fish and how many are in the tank?

Millinium

OK, sorry, I updated my profile. The betta died, you are right he didn't seem to like having the other fish in his space, also got niped a bit by the tetras (gave them away).

My ammonia and nitrite is 0 since the tank is old, my nitrates were a bit high though like 50-80. I hadn't realized it since apparently I wasn't shaking the bottle in the test kit enough (thanks fishlore members for that). I've been doing a lot of water changes since the glancing started so it is better now, and cut down the number of fish.

I am using salt because it's the only thing i can think to do before i get a proper diagnosis.

Now my favorite molly is glancing, it's spreading . No spots, no specs, no worms though that I can see. If it is velvet it would be really hard for me to detect since all of my fish has at least some gold on them. Even my dalmation/black mollys lol. Doesn't help that I wouldn't know what to look for either.

what I was considering doing was removing all my rocks and decorations from my tank while I am treating it.

aquarist48

Hello Millinium and Welcome to Fish Lore. I'm sorry to hear about your fish problems. If indeed your fish have ICH they will look like they've been sprinkled with salt. I'm with Lucy and I don't recommend using salt. Raising your temperature to 84 for two weeks should resolve ICH issues, along with the gravel vacuums. What you call glancing, I think most of us refer to it as "flashing".
Don't treat your tank with chemicals or medicines until you know what the problem is. It could lead to more troubles down the road if you do. Some can even cause you to lose your cycle.
Are you seeing any white spots at all?
Best wishes.
Ken

Millinium

Yea, it's flashing. there are no white spots at all, even though more and more fish are starting to do it. Even my golden barbs are now.

I think I might stop with the salt, raise the temperature, then just wait and see what happens. Other than the flashing they are completely fine though.

Thanks for the help.

Millinium

My black mollies gills and and now stomach are turning gold/bronze. Is this normal?

It is like the type of gold/bronze pattern you see on a black Moore goldfish when it starts to turn yellow. It's very very prominent now. Still no other symptoms however.

I have been searching their skin very meticulously since the flashing started and I didn't notice it before, but now it's so obvious I barely need any light. I went to the fish store I got it from to look at their molly's and they all are like that as well so I was thinking it may be normal. However it's sort of a mom and pop store and there are dead fish in a lot of their tanks so who knows.

I would take a picture but my camera sucks.

hooxeii

I used salt for a long time, not knowing that it can actually irritate the fish and cause them to overproduce the protective slime coat, which irritates them and makes them stressed... this can lead to ich (thanks Shawnie ).

The suggestion I got from the above person was to do daily 20% water changes for awhile until the salt is gone. I've noticed a huge improvement already in my fish, even though a couple do have ich.

If there are no white spots, then it may not be ich... hard to tell sometimes cause you can only see ich in one of its three life cycle stages.