Nasty Female Molllies

A

AmyB

AC Members
Aug 25, 2005
15
0
1
Southwest Florida
I posted a few weeks ago about my 30 gallon aquarium being a death warrant for any fish that come to live there. Thanks to everyone's help, it seems to be looking better (no fish died within the last 6 or 7 days). The problem might have been that I was using pure R.O. (reverse osmosis) water and somebody said that type of water is missing a lot of good chemicals. So, I started adding a product by Kent specifically for R.O. water, and so far so good.

I have six fish left.....4 zebra danios, 1 female mickey mouse platy, and 1 very unhappy male black lyre tail molly. Two days ago I decided to try and add new fish to the aquarium, so I bought two female black mollies thinking my little guy would love the company. He was really excited while I was floating the bag with the two females....and seemed nice to them when they were let out.

Yesterday I noticed him lying on the bottom of the tank (not dead....just lying on his stomach like he was resting). When I tapped the tank he swam back up to the surface and hung out in the bubbles like he usually does. This afternoon, I couldn't find him until I looked behind the bubble wand at the bottom in the back of the tank and there he was hiding. When I coaxed him out, I noticed that he had a big chunk out of his back and the two female mollies immediately swam up to him and started biting at him on the sore.

I rigged up a holding area that I made out of mesh screen, and put him in there for the time being. I honestly don't know if he's going to live, though. He does not look happy (or healthy anymore). Does anybody have any idea why the two female mollies attacked my male? Am I ever going to be able to let him back out into the tank? Can he survive this type of injury? Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
From my own expirience female mollies go through a stage where they are absolutely horrible. I've had several do the same to dwarf gourami, other male mollies, common plecos (WAY back in the day before I knew better). They are horribly aggressive, sometimes they break out of it in a month or two, other times never.

It is possible for the male to survive that injury. Basically, do a water change 50% or so, and keep doing this every couple days to keep the water nice and clean. Add 3-4 tablespoons of salt for each gallon of water, also when you do your water changes ONLY add back the amount of salt that was removed, for example you have a 2gal tank, first dose you add 6-8 tablespoons of salt, after a 50% water change (1gal) you would need to add 3-4 tablespoons of salt back into the tank. Also double dose the tank with the reccomended dosage of Melafix, basically doing the same as you would with the salt after each water change. This is a cheap way to make things more suitable for healing and preventing infection of that wound, he will have a much better chance of survial by doing this.
 
I don't know what it is. I have tried to put three females and 1 male balloon mollie together and two times I bought a male the silver female killed him. That silver female died when I accidentially polluted the water and the other two females have become close friends. No more male mollies for me. Some female mollies are just plain mean.

Hope your little guy makes it.

Kim
 
Your mollie could absolutely pull through. I've seen fish in lfs isolation tanks survive some HORRIBLE wounds.
 
You just never know with fish. I had a JD once that had a HUGE chunk taken out of him by an oscar ... he lived. He never looked quite right, he had big dent in his belly, but otherwise he was happy fish.

Others have already said it, but F mollies can be nasty little things. This is why I don't keep mollies. :)
 
I had 2 female mollies and 2 male mollies and my black molly started attacking everyother fish! I was mad but let her do it cause I could do nothing. in a week she settled down. None of the fish were hurt thankfully! Now both my males are dead!:(:( Right now my black molly is not in charge of the tank. The other female molly is:D..but right now no one is being mean thankfully!:D
 
Well, here's an update on my molly situation: the black molly died last night. Personally, I think it was from a broken heart. :( But it was probably either the wound or just another casuality of my water problem. No more mollies, though, they are just not nice fish.
 
I LOVE mollies..they are so CUTE! mine are nice..I cause it just depends on that certain fish!
 
I'm using RO water because we have well water at our house, and we have RO throughout the whole house. I'm hoping that the Kent stuff will make the RO water better. It's getting very frustrating, though, to say the least. I've had the aquarium since last November, have never overstocked my tank, and have probably had over 30 fish die from December till now. All my water samples come back in the normal range...but the pet stores only test for the bad stuff and PH. So, who knows what my water is all lacking?
 
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