My dalmation balloon belly mollie female dying tonite

Question
Hi there- My female is dying tonite ( will have probably died well before you read this) and I can't help  her and I am so bummed out. She is large, has had 4 babies in the past 8 months, and has a orange mate. One odd thing I have noticed is her vent is very large, round, with little hair like protrusions sticking out a little bit. Over the past week she has slowed down, not wanting to eat. I have had her housed in a 29 gallon with her mate and 4 other platies that are offspring. The tank has been cycling and I have been doing my water changes 25% - ammonia is reading 0, but now it is the nitrate and nitrite issue. So, I have used Prime, done my water changes, and used aquarium salt. Tonite when I came home she was sitting on bottom on gravel - I removed her- she "wobbled" around the tank a little bit- and put her in a small hospital tank, with new water treated with Prime - in case it was the water doing it - and an airstone. She has gone onto her side and having a jerk or two every so often, but clearly dying. I am so distraught - I can't stand for anything to suffer, and she was one of my favorites! I went ahead and did my 25% water change in tank - but I can't sem to figure out what did this to her? Not dropsy, as her scales look fine. I am so sad!  - Any ideas?  Thanks, Kristie P,S, What is best euthanasia method for fish these days?

Answer
Hi Kristie,
I'm really sorry to hear about that... :(

I know the little fish is probably lost by now but please know with my experience with fish and livebearers especially, the condition you described your Dalmation molly to be in sounds like there is little that you could have possibly done and not much I could have advised you to do but keep her comfortable.

Female mollies and livebearers go through all sorts of problems since they deliver so many fry all the time and are constantly pregnant. It puts a strain on their little bodies definitely and they are very suceptible to internal infections, kidney problems, and even egg-binding

Sadly, many females die after delivering a brood of babies because it is too much stress on them perhaps especially for older "worn-out" females.

Poor little thing. You are doing all you can for her now and she is EXTREMELY lucky to have such a caring and concerned owner. When we loose fish after our efforts are given to save them, the best thing to console ourselves is to know we tried our best to help.

As far as euthanasia. The only true humane way to euthanize fish nowadays is by use of clove oil. I've had experience with this when having to put a 12 inch Oscar down after he had continuous debilitating tumors. And I can personally say this method works and the fish is out within a few minutes with no signs of stress and no thrashing (even with such a large fish as mine)

You'd need a small container and know how much was is required in the euthanize container so you can correctly dose the clove oil. You'll also need a small bottle o "premix" the dosage of clove oil with some water because it tends to not mix well with water and using a bottle and shaking it up and then adding it to the euthanize container works well.

The typical dosage for euthanisia is-

*25 drops per liter

place the fish in the container and keep it dark if needed. Within a few minutes the little fish should out for good. Watch for any gill movement and if after 1 minute there is none, the little fish is out for sure. Usually it doesn't take long.

I hope this helps and best wishes to you!
Karen~