Sick fish, help!

[petcrazy213]

Hi again,

I need help diagnosing what my fish has so I can treat it. One of my Mollies (who seem fine for a while) has suddenly developed some kind of "fungus" or something. I will explain and then I need to know what I should treat with if anything to help the fish get better ...

I saw her yesterday and she was perfectly fine, swimming, eatting, etc. This morning she was hovering low in the tank and wouldn't come to the top to eat. I watched her and saw the the fin on her right side seemed to be paralyzed and there was a large patch on that side that looked "yucky" like a creamy color fuzziness or something. I took her out of the main tank and put her into a hospital tank (5-7 gallons). Is this ich or something else? What should I do to treat it?

Next, I also noticed my banjo cat floating near the top of the tank (highly unusual) up by the plants. I watched it for a while and saw it would swim up to the surface like it was trying to breath the air and it would sit there for a minute and them descend to the tank bottom where it would sit. Then a minute later it would head to the surface again. I scooped it up (it does swim if it has to) and put it in the hospital tank with the molly an noticed that it has a similar filmy/fuzzy something both on it's underside near it's head and on top if it's head. The top of it's head has a circle of the stuff that's about 2/3 covering it's head size and it looks like it's head is actually peeling (like when you get a sunburn and then peel. Could this be the same problem the molly has or something different?

I only have the 1 hospital tank so I hope it's ok to keep these 2 together and treat the same. They both seem to have some sort of fungus thing going on, at least I think it's fungus.

Help please!

 

[petcrazy213]

(update)

* earlier this afternoon *
I tried to get some info off the web since I didn't get an answer here yet and I got some medicine called "CURE-ICH" which seemed to fit the description of the problems the fish were having. Anyway, I dosed the hospital tank with the 2 fish with it as directed on the bottle ...

* later this evening *
Well, the Banjo Cat didn't make it. He died late this afternoon and my 4 year old and I performed a burial at sea for the little guy. Upon examination after it's passing I noticed it looked a little puffy in it's body/belly part. It wasn't really bloated too bad but it did look like it had air inside there. It could have been all the times it went to the surface but I don't know. Anyway, the molly seems to be fighting and actually seems to be using the fin that seemed paralyzed earlier. Don't know if it's the medicine or less stress in the hospital, either way I hope she pulls through this.

 

[31337]

sounds a bit like swimbladder! have you tested the water? can you tell me the water readings? is it a sailfin? do you add salt to the water?

The bloatedness was probaly caused by it's death.

 

[aquaguy1331]

assesing a fish's cause of death long after death is a bad idea. when an animal does, it's body begins to decay and this produces gases. this fills cavitys in the body and makes the fish look bloated. in the future, if your feeling brave, scrape a bit of the fungus off and take it to a fish store. many places will tell you what it is. and tell you how to treat it.

Good luck!