Sick Platy?

Hi,

One of our platys (female) is just sitting at the bottom of the tank almost lifeless, every now and then she will go to swim and get a couple of inches off the floor then go back down again, her little fins arent moving as quick as usual when she is still and she isnt eating, she doesnt seem bloated. I have tried to take a picture to attach.

In the tank we have 2 dwarf Guerami's, 11 neon tetras, 6 corys, 2 bristlenose, 2 keyhole cichilds and 2 female platys (one of which is the problem).

I will try and give as much info as possible. Our tank is 120litre, we have done a JBL easy test 6 in one test and everything in the water seems fine, the nitrate is slightly higher but not in the 'danger' zone. Tank temp is set to 26. We did a water change 5 days ago and added 3 of the corys and 1 of the bristlenose's yesterday.
We use the usual fish safe chemical at water changes and we have just now put in some pure aquarium balls to see if it helps with the nitrate, the fish has been sick before adding these balls. We gave the tank some cat fish pellets for the first time yesterday as well as normal fish flakes but thats the only different thing we have done.

All other fish seem happy and fine.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks
Trinity

Hi Trinity, she's not looking so great is she ...

I'll try and help as much as I can. Firstly, the test strips are really inaccurate - when you are able I'd change it for a liquid drop test. You can get them much cheaper on Ebay or Amazon than they are in the local fish stores (often saving yourself anything up to about £15.

Secondly, you say you've added the plec and 3 cories all in one go. How long has this tank been running? Plec can be real waste machines and your filter may not be coping with it.

thirdly, you say you've added pellets and flake. Did all the pellets get eaten? Are there any rotting away under decoration/plants etc?

From the info you've given, and without an accurate water testing kit I'd say you've got a water issue going on and the platy is just the first to show signs of sickness.

As a precaution I'd do a large water change (more than 50% - aim for 70 or 80%) and see if she perks up. Also check that those pellets were all eaten and none are rotting away in your substrate. Do you have a gravel vac? If you do dig it well into the substrate all over the tank floor so it can suck up any nasties aswell as removing water.

My guess would be that she'll perk up for a bit and possible start looking sick again several hours later - if she does you can bet on ammonia being present and the filter not coping with the new waste machine.

I'll keep an eye open for you responding and I hope she gets better

Akasha

Hi Akasha,

Thanks for responding. We added the 4 fish together but the corys are fairly small (does that make a difference)?? The tank has been running quite a few months now, I cant remember exactly, sorry not v helpful.

I dont think the issue is waste because we were only commenting the other day how the waste is practically nothing these days since we got our other few corys (before adding more the other day) and we replaced all the necessary bits in our filter. The food pellets were only put in last night and gone today too. We do have a vac and my husband said he will do a large water change tomorrow as you advised and will also change some of the filter bits just in case. We will also buy the testing kit you mentioned, if you have a name of a good one that would be helpful?

I guess time will tell and all we can do is hope she gets better

Will keep you posted

Trinity

Hi, thanks for getting back to me and you've given me some more info to go on aswell (somewhat unwittingly )

When you say you change the filter bits are you saying you change your filter media quite often? By that I mean sponges, ceramic balls, cartridges (all filters are different and have different media)

If that is the case please stop doing it. You are removing the good bacteria the fish need to stay alive everytime you put in a new sponge/cartridge/whatever it has.

It might be easier if I refer you to the beginners section on the forum if you havn't already read it to read up on cycling the tank.

Filter media only ever needs changing when it has fallen to bits. The filter instructions always say they need changing monthly but that is just the companies way of getting money out of your wallet - changing them has a serious detrimental effect on the fishes health.

Looking at that platy I have to say she may well not make it to the morning. When I said to change a large amount of water I meant to do it tonight. If there is only a small amount of ammonia in the tank it will have risen massively by the morning and you could well be looking at a very very sick tank full of fish.

As for the test kit - I use API Freshwater Master Kit - it's about £30 at the lfs but I got it for £20 off ebay. I've had it over 6 months so it does last - once the tank is cycling you only need to use it if you suspect something is going wrong. There are other brands on the market but look for one that does PH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate all in one - they are the main things you need to test for at this stage.

Hiya,

No we dont change it alot, we have only changed it once since we got the tank set up and we didnt change all the sponges at once, only one I think so I thought when you said about the filter not coping maybe we should change one of the others. I know the money making schemes filter companies use dont worry. We arent complete beginners, newbies yes but we understand the fundimentals and have managed to keep quite a few fish alive so far (I just hope it continues)!!!

We will do a water change and let you know what happens, thanks again for taking the time to respond and advise

Fingers crossed!
Trinity

PS We are doing a water change now

Glad your doing that water change. I hope that little platy is looking better today

When I said the filter may not be coping what I meant was the bacteria won't have muliplied enough, fast enough to cope with the new arrivals. Our filters grow bacteria to cope with the ammonia being produced by the fish already there. When we add new fish the ammonia being produced increases and it takes the filter time to increase the bacteria to break down that ammonia and cycle it into harmless NitrAte.
If you've replaced a filter sponge recently the bacteria will decrease and will have to start it's process again to support the fish already in the tank. If you then increase the ammonia again by adding new fish before it's had time to build up then the cycle will crash, and a ammonia spike will occur.

I went through new tank syndrome a while back as I had to buy a new filter. I didn't know about cycling the filter back then and I had a platy that did the same that yours is doing. I discovered this forum whilst looking to find out what was wrong.

Let me know how things are today