annmscott

My female white molly that I have had since 9/15/06 just died. She began to get fat about 3 weeks ago so I thought she was preggers, then she started acting a bit weird, I thought she may have had dropsy, but she lived on. actually started acting more normal again then this morning I noticed she had a red splotch on her head, then about an hour later she died. The spot was not there last night, or I didn't notice it, but I have been monitoring her alot.. Any ideas of what it is? She was all white and there were no other areas that were discolored. I also have a black Molly in this tank and a albino cory catfish. My levels are good and have been. My black Molly is getting chunky now, but is acting normal.

Any help would be appreciated.
Ann

Richard

The speed between the appearance of that red splotch and her death, is cause for concern.. I'm leaning toward it being a case of Velvet, in which case the survivors in the tank may need treatment.. I should point out, I've never encountered Velvet with my Mollies, so I'm basing my diagnosis solely on what I've read, which is Velvet can be white like Ich or rust/gold-colored.. if I'm not mistaken, the treatment is the same as for Ich.. whatever it is though, it sounds like an external parasite and so should be considered contagious.. you may want to monitor your surviving fish closely for the next few days, and at any sign of something being amiss, snag one of the wide spectrum external parasite(Ich, Velvet, Trichodiniasis, Saprolegniasis) treatments, remove all carbon, and get cracking on treating them.. the good news is that type of infection has a much better cure rate than an internal like Dropsy, so catch it in time and you'll get your fish back to good.

Stradius011

I read something interesting in a book. They found a weird disease and the fish grows fat but acts normal and stays active until the stomach/chest actually splits open. They don't think it is contagious. Weird.