it could only happen to us, honestly!!

[mrsflibble]

well its pretty much official, one of our fish is epileptic; if there is a fish equivalent.
for the past few months i have been noticing the same fish (a black and orange mollie) have a shivvering fit, sink and then recover quite quickly. they've been getting worse though, and today he spent most of the day resting on a rock. for a swimmy-type Mollie fish this is unheard of, they tend to keep the the centre strata of the tank, constantly swimming.
this evening after having a bit of a swim around he passed out again and was sucked against the filter.
i actually thought he was dead because he wasnt fighting against the current but when i put the net in to fish his little corpse out, he swam away, got to the other side of the tank, passed out and fell against the flipping rock again. he doesnt seem to be strong enough to swim against the current anymore, i think he's not long for this world.

right now he's lying on a leaf of the plant, another thing mollies just don't do. urgh.
poor little epi-fish (that's his name).


(the loaches are still fine)

[Thomzo]

Poor thing. Let's hope he doesn't suffer too much.

My mother is having problems with aggresive Silver Tips. She was told that they wouldn't be a problem but they have been biting and headbutting and have killed all her guppies and neons I nearly offered to take them
(as cat food) but decided that wouldn't be terribly diplomatic.

Zoe

[mrsflibble]

lol: we only have hippyfish. all happy to be in a community tank. the kuhli loaches and clown loaches seem to really love eachother, they cuddle up together under a rock and in some coral, the catfish keeps to himself and the whiptail catfishes hide under the plant, lookig menacing but they only eat algae. the mollies tend to headbutt eachother, they started off headbutting the catfish but he must have smacked them one or something cos they leave him alone now.

[StripyPixieSocks]

Awww poor fishy!

I'd quarantine the fish though as if it is caused by parasites then it could effect all the other fish in the tank too.

We have two tanks of tropicals one with 2 Khulis and 2 shrimp awaiting a large shoal of Cardinals and some Bumblebee Shrimp and a larger tank with 4 Yo Yo Loaches, 1 Bristle nose Pleco, 6 Neon tetras and 3 Pearl Danios!

Not bad really as we only started when we found an 18 x10x10 fish tank and though oooh lets get a couple of tropical fish... 6 months later we had a 4' and a 3' going as well!

The 4' tank is in our bedroom and it's remarkably calming :)

We want to re-do our tanks though with a fully planted version and get more fish... we just haven't any money to do it at the moment!

[mrsflibble]

we've had him nearly a year, and not lost any other fish from the same kind of disease (lost a few from other causes though!).

he's still alive. not fitting as much as he was the other night, but still doing it.

[StripyPixieSocks]

Poor soul... never heard of an epileptic fish though... we had one with one eye once... now that was odd lol didn't realise they could get along with just one eye!

I have to get OH to deal with the dead fish, they might be 'just fish' to everyone else but they're my pets and I'm rather attached to them

[mrsflibble]

if i have to deal with a "wet death" i cant bring myself to flush them, so i bury instead.

[StripyPixieSocks]

if i have to deal with a "wet death" i cant bring myself to flush them, so i bury instead.

You shouldn't flush them anyway... any diseases they could be carrying could be transferred to UK waters if they get into the water system via the flushing method and could infect UK fish stocks adversely.

A friend of ours in the Environment Agency nearly flipped his lid when we mentioned flushing dead tropical fish (or those housed with them).

Also if they are just poorly and not actually dead and recover... they can wreak havoc on the bio-systems.

Best to just bury them to be on the safe side... preferably away from your edibles apparently!

[mrsflibble]

my edibles are all in platers, apart from ym leeks which are in a different bed to the dead fishes lol!

epifish is still alive and quivvering though!

[evelyn]

What ever happend to epi fish?

Eve