? about mollies

Question
Well I have a 55 gallon tank and have Mollies, Swordtails, Tetras, Danios, and 2 clown loches in my tank and if I do euthanize the fish should I still put the Epsom salts in the tank? How many fish is too many in a 55 gallon. Right now I'm just trying to figure out a tank like this. Before I only had the tank with goldfish in it. So now I am having some troubles.
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I have all kinds of fish ranging from Mollies to 2 clown loaches and I wanted to know one of my black Mollies appears to have ick or something like it. She looks almost bloated and her scales on her body are like coming up. I really don't know what it is. I had another Mollies that had this a while back and he died from it and I don't want this one to. If you could please help me with this it would be greatly appreciative
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Good morning, Michelle, thank you for your question.

I wish I could say your molly had ich. Ich is actually a parasitic infection that is rarely fatal if treated properly. A bloated appearance with scales sticking out is the classic description of dropsy, which is much harder to cure.

Before I explain more about that, let me just mention here that dropsy is an environmental disease. By that, I mean that there is likely a water quality issue that needs to be adressed so your other fish don't get sick.

Test your water. There should be 0 ppm of nitrite and ammonia (always! even half a point is toxic) and under 20 ppm of nitrate in your tank. Nitrates over 40 ppm begin to cause problems. If you don't have a test kit of your own, your local fish store will test your water for you, but be sure to ask them for the results, otherwise they might just say that your water tests "fine" or a "little high" ...

A water change doesn't hurt, and always helps. Change at least 20% of the water. Vacuum the gravel if you can. Rinse the filters in tank water or replace them if they are disposable filters. This will improve water quality.

When you say you have "all kinds of fish" do you mean in one tank? While a community of fish is certainly possible to have, make sure your fish don't have wildly different water requirements. For example, goldfish like cooler water. Temperatures over 72 degrees stress them out and make them sick. That's why they need to be kept with other coldwater fish or by themselves.

Also, make sure you are not overstocked. While a busy tank is fun to watch, you don't want it to be crowded. How many gallons is your tank? I have a 10 gallon tank with two rams, three bloodfin tetras, and an otoclinus, and I consider that tank to be slightly overstocked. So make sure you are not overstocked! Your water quality will be impossible to maintain and your fish will all get sick. Two cloan loaches will live a long time and grow up to 12 inches each! Make sure you take into account the mature sizes of your fish.

Ok, now that I have given you some basic background information on keeping your tank healthy, let's do what we can to save your fish. Dropsy is a result of internal swelling in your fish. Like edema in humans, the internal tissues are full of water - bad news for the vital organs. These are a few sites that propose treatment options:

http://www.flippersandfins.net/Dropsy.htm
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article24.html

The second article brings up a very good point. Aquarium salt, a usually useful and effective tonic, SHOULD NOT be used in this case, because salts are already at high concentrations in your affected fish. (Dropping a freshwater fish into a marine tank causes dropsy-like symptoms.) Epsom salts, however, are going to help with the osmotic stress and should absolutely be used. Pick up some Epsom salts at any pharmacy, only about $4 for a six pound bag. Several web searches concur that 1/8 of a teaspoon per 5 gallons is right, but concentrations as high as 1/2 tablespoon per 10 gallons will not be harmful to your fish.

You can attempt to medicate with kanamycin sulfate, Michelle, but an internal infection is very difficult to treat. I am sorry to say this, but by the time you notice the pinecone/pineapple appearance on your fish, your fish is on the verge of multiple organ failure. A spontaneous recovery is possible, but not probable - so in my book, Epsom salts as palliative care are the way to go, if you do not want to euthanize. If you suspect your fish is suffering and you decide you do want to euthanize, here is the best article I have found on the web that details this topic:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-most-humane-way-to-euthanize-a-fish.htm

Sorry to not be able to offer better news. Good luck to you and your pets, feel free to write back any time.

Happy holidays to you and your family.
Nicole

Answer
Hi Michelle, thanks for writing back today.

I am glad to hear you have a 55 gallon! That is considered by many to be an ideal size for a startup tank. I wish I had enough space to keep one myself, since a tank like that provides plenty of surface area (it's a looong tank) as well as water stability due to the large volume of water.

In order for me to tell whether you are overstocked, you would need to tell me more specifically what kind of fish you have. Mollies grow to be about 4 inches, Swordtails about 5 inches. Tetras and danios are variable. Giant danios get awfully big! But zebra danios stay small, about 2.5 inches. Tetras are another large family with varying sizes. Rummynose tetras are only about 1.5 inches, while bleeding hearts can be over 3 inches.

Also, you would have to tell me how many of each fish you have. Of course, if you have 20 tetras in your tank, it would be a much different story than if you just had 8 of them. So do write back and tell me how many of each fish you have, if you want me to evaluate your tank personally.

If not, I can point you in the direction of some websites that give you guidelines on stocking your fish:

http://www.aquariumpros.com/articles/stockguide.shtml
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/beginnerinfo/a/fishcalc.htm
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/beginnerinfo/a/evenstocking.htm

The last one makes a good point. Except for the clown loaches, your aquarium inhabitants are all mid-dwellers, meaning they stay in the middle of the water column. While a 55 gallon tank has a lot of swimming room, too many of each fish all swimming in the same space can overcrowd your tank. I just can't know until you tell me how many of each fish you have specifically! Another question for you...

How long have you had your tank set up? The maturity of your tank is another determing factor for how many fish you can have. Adding too many fish too soon is never a good idea. Cycling a tank takes a month or more, and new additions should be added slowly so that the beneficial bacteria that processes the bio-load of each fish can keep up. Did you set up the tank recently? This is when the majority of problems begin. A freshwater tank is really only "broken in" (that is, ready for its full capacity of fish) after 6 months. It's much longer for saltwater setups, so take heart!

The Epsom salts would not harm anyone in your tank, but if no one else is sick, I would treat the molly separately. If you don't have another tank, a clear rubbermaid container with some of the tanks own water and a bubbler will do. Dropsy is not contagious, but it is still advised that you separate the fish from the other tankmates. Weak or sick fish recover best if they are kept by themselves.

Let me just share with you a personal story. I used to keep swordtails, sailfin mollies, and platies in my 29 gallon community setup. I could never get any of them to thrive. They would live for a year or so, then perish. I don't know if it's because livebearers are always reproducing or because they are simply not genetically as hardy, but I could never get them to live for years the way I did my tetras. So that's all I have in my 29 gallon tank, 2 lemon tetras, 2 columbian tetras, 3 black widow tetras. Well, I also have 2 brilliant rasboras and 2 cory cats, but mostly I have tetras in my tank, with a bushynose pleco for cleaning.

While I enjoyed my community tank for many years, this past year I have had better luck understanding the pH of my water (mine is below neutral, 7.0, the pH that livebearers thrive at) and buying fish accordingly. You may find later on that it is the same for you....

In closing, Michelle, I am sorry about your dropsy afflicted molly. He is probably doomed, but these are lessons we have all been through on our way to becoming better aquarists. Make sure you are perfoming partial water changes every week. 10% twice a week is best, but 20% at once is fine. Make sure you service your filters often. Rinse or replace the media every week, and clean the filter itself monthly.

If you tell me as much as you can about your setup, I can probably tell you what is going wrong, if something indeed is wrong. You may have just gotten a batch of bad mollies! But if you have time to test your water and tell me the nitrite and ammonia levels (remember, always 0 ppm) the nitrate levels (under 20 ppm) and the pH, alkalinity and hardness of your water, along with perhaps the temperature of your water, age of your tank, how many/what specific kind of tank inhabitants,  what kind of filtration you are using, and your maintenance schedule including water changes, something in all that will tell me what is off, which is what I need to know before I can give you the best help.

Good luck and best wishes,
Nicole