Molly fry - fungus?

C

CDNSimpson

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Jul 12, 2010
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St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
A friend has about a dozen black molly fry in a five gallon aquarium, and she's cycling the aquarium with the fish in it (I know it's a heavy load, so she's been doing daily 50% water changes and checking parameters constantly. Ammonia went to 0 just this morning). She hasn't been feeding them a whole lot to try to keep waste to a minimum. I just saw the fish today and I'm worried that they may have contracted something. Most of them are very skinny with swollen gills, and one of them is particularly skinny and has a white fuzzy growth coming from underneath its head where the gills meet. I'll try and get a picture right now, but I'm not very good at photography.

Any thoughts what this might be and what we can do to treat it?
 
Not often you'll hear me say this, but that does look like fungus. What's the KH/GH? Mollies are very prone to skin infections in soft water.
 
KH/GH = 3 and 6, respectively.

I got the see the fish again last night, and it has lost its little fungal goatee, so I'm not sure what to think about it. I'm going to continue checking on it as often as I can to make sure it doesn't lead to more problems.

Thanks for your help KarlTh.
 
I wouldn't try to keep mollies in that water. You may be lucky, but I'd use rift lake cichlid salts and bicarb of soda to get both up to 10-15. Or more. Absolutely pristine water will be required if the hardness can't be raised.
 
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