Fish swimming with head down

[melissasroja]

Hey everyone. Im having a problem with one of my balloon mollies. Its hard to explain but Ill do my best. She is swimming with her head down and cant seem to recover from it. Visually her fins and scales look perfect. No spots. No bloat. Nothing other than her head is constantly down. When she is in the main tank she pretty much will just spin around and be unable to swim at all though she is for sure trying to recover and swim. Ive had her in a breeder now for about a week and Ive figured out if I leave the breeder so only about 3 inches of it has water she is good. She can move around still head down but she doesnt loose her balance like she would if the breeder were deeper in the water. Once I put it deeper than about 3 inches she starts being unable to swim again. Its almost like her belly is resting on the bottom of the breeder helping her to stay balanced. So here I have this fish in a breeder with only a few inches of water which seems quite cruel. Funny thing is she eats fine and she is pooping a lot. More than I would consider a normal amount of poop for a small fish. I thought about fasting her for a few days but then I thought Im afraid doing that will make her lose strength and she will die because of it. Any ideas or opinions would be great. She is the only fish in the tank with this issue and my water checks out perfectly. Im stumped! Thanks.

Melissa

 

[Jannika]

If the fish loses equalibrium, wobbles around and swims funny, it's usually a bacterial infection of the swim bladder and treated with the antibiotic erythromicin.

 

[Wren]

Then again, balloon mollies are kind of deformed. Do they have swim bladder issues like fancy goldfish?

I really don't know how to help your molly.

 

[XanAvaloni]

Agreed it sounds like a swim bladder issue. Never dealt with it myself but if jannika says erythromicin works you might give it a try. Unfortunately I hear swim bladder issues are notoriously difficult to treat, as wren notes you might want to check out sites that specialize in goldfish to see if they have any suggestions.