Being The Responsible Aquarist

well today I took the plunge and took our 3 male platys back to the lfs and swopped for 3 females. I don't think I can continuously look after fry in large amounts.forever. so I shall wait for breeding until i have a ginormous (lol) tank. So anyway, I have pretty fish. The new ones are yellow/orange with black peppering along her sides....named comet
a she....mickey mouse we named minnie ( yeah like so original) and a female red/orange platy that we decided to keep the name flame.so we have lots of prettys. This is Comet


and this is flame

I think that is so sensible and look at the lovely fish, you dont need the hassle of loads of fry I used to have some that looked very similiar, di

Well I hate to say this but I think I've got a problem with my tank!
all the levels are
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate0-5
pH 7.2


We just had to recover my beautiful comet from the tank, She has died, I watched her float and swim then float and I think maybe she wasnt well when I picked her up from the lfs this morning. She was quite ok at first then slowly became quiet. Also, my twin bar platy Honey, who gave birth a few days ago still has a swollen belly, and now shes showing signs of dropsy. What do I do?
I know theres no known cure and is it contagious or is this a side effect of the birth....maybe a baby is stuck? Do I take her out of the tank or what else can I do. The other fish keep swimming fast into objects too ( not all of them, just a few) hitting their gills or side body....I think I'm in trouble here. what can i do

oh no!! get medication!! seperate the dropsy ones!! and hope for the best!

To me it sounds like you are describing "flashing" activity. Please make a post in the tropical emergencies area. People there are far better at disease than most of us. It does sound like there is something wrong with your fish and my best guess, since it is affecting so many, is that it has something to do with your water. I recognize that your nitrogen cycle is in good shape, but something is affecting the fish.

Its affecting the ones that came from one tank at the lfs
comet came from the same tank
They do seem to be getting better. Constantly watching them is making me sleepy. The ones which were bumping and rubbing seem to be doing it less noe....do you think that the waterchange i did this morning would now be starting to have a good effect?
Oh and we lost Honey, bless. will her fry be affeted? there are 3 of them

If the fry were born into your water, they will never have known anything else. I find fry are much tougher than the adults when it comes to adapting to new water.

but could they have caught dropsy from mum, and took her tp lfs where i bought her this morning, and on closer inspection it seems she had a fry stuck

They dont catch dropsy, dropsy is a syndrome brought on by poor water conditions, they should be fine, di

dropsy is Bacterial haemorrhagic septicaemia. i believe bacteria can multiply exponentially and therefore spread within a fluid environment...it also depends on the bacteria....my tank levels are fine and clean,....so i assume after our lfs trip that the infection would have been caused by a decomposing fry stuck in the birthing canal. Infection can spread especially as a few of my fish are acting strange. I only bought her on the 10th so she was new to my aquarium and so are he others