Dead Swordtail turned white.

[Ima Newbie]

I had a Magnolia Swordtail that died today. I had treated him about a week ago for fin rot in a hopital tank. I used Melafix for treatment. He was looking better, so I returned him to the main tank. After a couple of days, I noticed he wasnt acting right, staying at the bottom alot and not eating much. Today I noticed him up against the intake from my filter, dead. When I removed him, the side that was up against the filter was white. The other side had white sploches, but still had some of his orange color. Was this some disease or just from him being up against the filter? I havnt heard of any disease that would cause this, but I'm a little concerned about my other fish.
Any ideas?
Ima

 

[tmlhaus]

White splotches..could that have been fungus or even ick? I hope not ick because that's a nasty one to have to treat. Try to look up some pictures of fish diseases so you can find out exactly what it was.

 

[Ima Newbie]

I dont believe that it was ich...there was no fuzzyness. It was like it had been bleeched. Like all the color has just gone. Weird. I looked up all the diseases that I know of and found nothing like it. Could it be that the scales came off? Is that where the color is, is in the scales?

 

[heresmike]

Fish will just normally lose their color when they die. I'd keep an eye on the other fish to see how they're doing and take action if they show any signs of disease.

As far as ich, I thought that was one of the easiest things to cure!?!

 

[noelberg]

Many fish will lose color after death, especially if they die during the night and the body sits for a while. This sounds gross but dead people are usually very pale when you go to the funeral - if not, lots of makeup is used. When the body dies, so do the pigment producers.