Stress is a common issue for Molly fish as they are pretty aggressive and territorial. In addition, stress causes them to become more susceptible to disease. Thus, it is essential to identify when your Molly fish feels stressed to take the necessary steps to reduce his stress levels. So, how to know whether your Molly fish is under stress?
Stressed Molly fish usually change their behavior, like staying at the bottom of the tank, inactive, and lying on their side. Stress in Molly fish can also lead to a loss of appetite. So if you notice any unusual behavior like this, your Molly may have some problems like stress, anxiety, illness, or other issues.
As Molly fish cannot express their feelings verbally, owners often fail to know their fish’s feelings. Thus, this post will be your perfect guide to learning about stress in Molly fish.
Can Your Molly Fish Feel Stressed?
Yes, molly fish are natural beings that can feel stressed like any other being with a functioning nervous system. Just because these fish seem small doesn’t mean they can’t feel. However, how they communicate their feelings is different from what we are normally familiar with.
Just like humans, Mollies can become stressed for a variety of reasons. Stress affects them in many ways, such as making it more difficult to digest their food and lowering their immune system. If you fail to resolve the issues causing it, your fish will eventually die.
It results from various problems such as changes in water conditions, bullying between Mollies or other fish, overcrowding, and tank mates that are too aggressive.
How Can You Identify If Your Molly Feels Stressed?
Molly Fish are susceptible creatures that require careful attention from the owner; without proper care, they will develop health issues, including stress. Here are some common signs that indicate your Molly might be suffering from anxiety:
Scratching Against Rocks And Decorations
Molly fish are frequently scratching against rocks and decorations in aquariums. Stress may be causing them to scratch more than usual, which can cause damage or wear over time if left untreated.
Sunken Belly
A sunken stomach indicates malnutrition from stress eating due to anxiety. Usually, this results in lethargy, so look for other signs that indicate stress in Molly fish.
Lethargic Behavior Even After Feeding
If you notice a distinct lack of energy after the end of the feeding, your Molly Fish might be hungry because they do not have enough available food while under stress.
Stress will make them eat more and reduce their activity—the activity and feeding pattern of some Mollies changes during focus.
So, you must carefully analyze the unusual behaviors like moving in the water too often or staying still at the bottom, eating too much or too little, etc.
Hiding
One of the easiest ways to determine if your Mollie feels stressed is to look where they choose the hideout. For example, if your Molly is constantly hiding in an area with little room, they are afraid or under stress.
Gasping At The Top Of the Water
Stress can cause a fish to have difficulty breathing, which will lead them to gasp at the top of the water. Typically, this occurs when environmental changes occur, such as temperature fluctuations, new tank mates, or food sources.
Loss Or Gain In Appetite
Changes in appetite indicate that something might be off, and you should note if your Mollie is not eating like normal. With stress being one of the primary reasons for loss of appetite, it’s important to keep track of how much and how often your Molly eats each day.
Discoloration Of Body Parts
Stress can also affect your Molly’s coloring, typically causing discoloration of body parts. For example, stress will cause a fish to become pale or have patches on their lighter or darker bodies than the rest of the scales. If your molly fish starts changing color suddenly, try to check the water and living conditions of the tank urgently.
Spinning
Some mollies will have difficulty swimming in the tank when under stress. Did you ever find your molly fish swimming vertically or frantically? Stress could result in mollies spinning around like crazy; this is typically a sign of an illness and, if you don’t treat it, could lead to death.
Clamped fins
Especially with male Mollies, clamped fins are another way you’ll be able to identify stress within your fish; attaching their fins happens when they feel threatened, so look out for other signs, such as hiding out gasping at the top of the water.
Fish Lying At The Bottom
Is your Molly lying at the bottom of the tank and hardly moving? It is typically a sign that they are not feeling well or there might be something else wrong with their health. So you’ll want to pay close attention if they start acting like this and take some necessary measures to make them happy and active.
Hanging Out On Side Of Tank Near Filter/Heater
Stress will make them feel threatened, resulting in hanging out on the side of the tank near the filter/heater. As previously mentioned, hiding out is also another standard indicator of stress within fish, but it’s important to note when you see other signs such as these too. Stress occurs by several factors such as tank mates, changes in the environment, and food sources.
What Causes Molly Fish To Feel Stressed?
Many things can cause Molly fish to feel too stressed out. Stress is a natural response, and of course, all animals will feel it at some point in their life. Some of the most common causes include:
Pregnancy
Stress can be a result of the impregnation of Molly fish. Pregnant Fishes suffer from hormonal changes and increased levels of cortisol. The feeling of stress amplified by the increased activity in their brain causes them to have more frequent seizures.
Stress will make it harder for the baby to survive in a healthy state, and if not addressed, this stress may lead to the death of the fry or mommy fish.
Disease And Illness
If Molly fish is suffering from a disease or an illness, they will feel stressed. It could cause them to become sick. Health issues make your fish vulnerable so that they will feel stressed. Stress weakens the immune system, so already ill fish cannot handle stress very well.
Poor Quality Water
Sometimes water quality isn’t significant enough for Molly fish to live in, and therefore, they become easily stressed because of this. The more often you clean your tank/pond, the less likely it will happen. Cleaning out dirty substrate or adding new plants should help too.
Not Enough Space
One thing that stresses Molly out is when you overcrowd them into a small space, thinking they’ll like having each other around as a company. In reality, though, you end up with a stressed-out fish that swims around frantically. In addition, stress causes Molly to become more susceptible to illnesses and infections, so it is best not to overcrowd them.
Temperature (Heat) Issues
Mollies can’t handle scorching temperatures in the tank/pond, which causes stress because their bodies cannot cope with such heat levels.
Predators
Some predators like large cichlids or even birds will prey on Mollies, causing vast amounts of stress for all involved and putting your little friends at risk of injury and death.
As much as you love your Molly, make sure there aren’t any natural predators living nearby that might do some harm.
These things put Molly’s under a lot of stress, causing them to be unhealthy and unhappy. Unfortunately, stress can also cause Molly fish behavioral issues that are not easy to deal with and needs patience.
Poor Diet
Sometimes it isn’t enough to feed your mollies. For example, they will need some extra nutrients in their diet, like algae wafers or shrimp pellets.
If you don’t give your Mollies the correct type of food, this could become an issue because stressed-out animals usually don’t eat well, which is going t make things worse.
How To Calm Down Stressed Molly Fish?
Stress is detrimental to the health of Molly fish and can cause a variety of different physical and psychological symptoms. Therefore, it’s important that you look out for these signs and calm your fish immediately.
Some of the ways to calm down a stressed Molly fish are:
Check And Correct Water Parameters
Stress is one of the most common reasons for Molly fish to develop bacterial or fungal infections. Stress can also contribute to poor water quality in your tank, and you need to check if ammonia and nitrite levels are high.
Friendly Tank Mates For Molly Fish
Having aggressive molly fish that bully your other fish will increase stress levels, ultimately affecting them. It will also result in your molly fish becoming stressed, and you need to keep that in mind when choosing tank mates for it.
Don’t Overstock Your Tank.
Stress usually results when you keep too many Molly fish together, resulting in overcrowding, territorial behavior, and fights among the fishes. Therefore, having a decent number of molly fish in your tank is necessary to keep their stress levels low.
Calm Environment
Change in their environment, including water quality and inappropriate temperature and lighting, is another reason your molly fish starts to act differently.
It would help if you kept this aspect of Molly’s fish care under consideration while keeping them at home. In addition, stress can make Molly fish more susceptible to disease. Hence, you need to ensure that the tank has proper heat and enough light.
Oxygenate The Water
Molly fish cannot live without oxygen in the tank, and I know you already have the idea of what happens when there is no oxygen. Hence, low oxygen levels due to lack of proper aeration is a risk you do not want to take.
You need to check if there’s enough oxygen in your water by installing an aquarium air pump or consider other alternatives like adding an air stone or air pump to help Molly fish breathe easily.
Stop Repeated Pregnancy
Repeated pregnancies can make your molly fish weak and more prone to diseases. Similarly, if you don’t separate the pregnant molly fish from the community tank, it can get quite messy with stress for both you and your fish.
Therefore, you need to stop overstocking the tank to reduce stress among the fish or consider having separate breeding tanks, so they don’t feel overcrowded. Also, differentiate if your molly fish is pregnant or fat, it will also help you decide your next step.
Proper Acclimatization
It would help if you acclimated the fish to the new tank before dropping them directly without giving them a head’s up.
Thus, they need a gradual increase in temperature and water parameters not to avoid stressing out quickly. Therefore, you need to keep this factor in mind while transferring Molly fish from the pet store or breeder to your home.
Conclusion
Summing up, stress is a common problem for pet fish owners. A proper environment provides the best chance of having healthy and stress-free Mollies. Stress causes due to many things. But knowing how to identify it is a vital first step in helping Molly fish stay healthy and live longer. Stress alleviation tips of Molly can be beneficial for their healthy being.
I hope this post was helpful to you. If it has been, please leave a comment below. Feel free to write your reviews and suggestions. Thank you for reading this post.
Happy Fishkeeping!!!
