Pregnant or something else?
 

Hi all. I have a 20g freshwater tank with some mollies and guppies. One of the mollies has had fry twice now, the last time being 6 weeks ago. We thought she was about to have more but are now thinking maybe something is wrong. I've never seen a molly this big before:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...cture007-1.jpg

She isn't even swimming right.....it's almost like she waddling.

Anyway, does anybody know by looking if she's about to give birth or sick? I should note that all our other fish are healthy so we're pretty sure it's not sickness.

if thats not a balloon molly, there is something wrong. Maybe bloat? Maybe something blocking the intestines?

yeah that doesn't look right at all. I would agree with the blocked intestines diagnosis.

My betta got constipated once and I read somewhere that if you feed it mashed peas (shelled) it helped to clear the blockage... and it worked. Maybe that might work with your fish?

i heard that alot of daphina can cuase some diarhea. Maybe that'll blast some nasties out

Thanks for the replies but we've been keeping a close eye on her tonight and she's been pooping so I don't think she has any kind of blockage that way.

Any other suggestions?

does she always stay at the surface? Does she ever even try to go down? Maybe it's a bad bladder problem. How long she been like this?

We've noticed this for the past 2 days now. She does tend to stay at the surface but will go down if scared. Does anybody think this may be dropsy?

Your Molly looks alot like 2 dogs to me, maybe thats the problem?

LOL! What the HELL?!

hahaha looks like the molly tuned into two dogs... wow binary fission as well as metamorphosis. impressive. or maybe the dogs are the offspring?!

Not having seen the mollie shot (only the dogs !!) Just going by your description , I have found this to be a condition often found in Mollies and Guppies after several broods . I think the kindest thing is to put it out of it's misery as you are most unlikely to find a cure .
McInery say's a salt water bath ( I oz sea salt to 1 gallon water ) has been known to prolong the fishes life for up to two months in the case of dropsy.
Good luck
........................Dave

;) thats some strange SH*T

Those are the hairiest mollies I've ever seen. :)

The tank temp must be too low.. the mollys are wearing sweaters.:mrgreen:

haha i guess a pic would help, when i had a molly (until my jewel cichlid ate it :neutral: ) he'd be at the water surface 90% of the time, but out of the couple that i did have in my freshwater they never got any intestinal problems when i fed flake food, well good luck :mrgreen: