Mollies & Fish TB

[bloom]

Added some mollies to my tank yesterday. Read that mollies eat thread alage and thought it might be interesting to see if they would, and to have them clean up my tank a little until things get in balance (tank is recently planted, no disucs yet).

Well, read today in another thread that mollies are a problem, because they're a carrier of fish tb. I'm going to take the mollies back to my lfs, and was wondering if I should treat my tank after I do. Guess I learned a lesson (hopefully not to costly) to not mess around with experiments with my discus tank until I know more about what I'm doing.

Thanks for the help.

Steve :-\

[brewmaster15]

Hi steve,
by most accounts Tb is not treatable. There are antibiotics that may work, but effectiveness in fish is questionable. And the only way to know for sure is to kill the fish and check internally for black nodules!

Also up to 30% of all aquarium fish are thought to carry it.That number is really conservative by many estimates. By carry I mean having had contracted and fought the infection. Generally these fish wall it off in their bodies, and become carriers. Should they die, be eaten, or have a relapse and shed bacteria into the water, others will get it.

I have kept mollies with Discus years ago ...for the same reason you posted. The probelm...Mollies only eat algae when other food isn't availible. In a discus tank, theres usually too much food. I ended up with Mollies everywhere!

hth,
al

ps... decent article here....
http://www.4qd.org/Aqua/disease/tb.html

[bloom]

Thanks for the info. al and the link to the article. Definitely helps put things in perspective. Guess if I'm going to worry about fish tb, would have to worry about lots of fish I might put into the tank--including the innocent, little neons I've had in the tank for a few weeks. Oh no, I have to take them out of the tank also....another mistake, ahhhhhhhh! :)

As you can tell, I've stressed a little, not too much, about some of the decisons re the tank, but it's good learning more about plants, water chemistry, etc.

Thanks again.

Steve