Dying Fish And Non-prolific Platy Fish

[Sunam]

Tank is 4 months old. 29 gallons. Prior to issues: 3 black skirt tetras, 5 glofish, 6 assorted platy fish (2 males/4 females)a cory cat and 2 snails.

Several times I thought the female platy fish were PG but never went dormant/quiet or seemed to drop fry. Every time I tested the water with the strips, levels were normal but pH and ppm were low.

We lost a platy and a snail so since I had missed a couple (okay, more) weeks of quarter changes, I used the siphon vacuum for the first time so it ended up being more like a 50% change. About a week later, we lost a couple of platy fish and the snail. I assumed it might be because of the drastic water change but because those levels were still low and the history of no fry, I posted here. You guys asked me to do the liquid test kit. They were out of it at PetSmart but I have the liquid pH kit and it says 7.0.

So now what?? What do you think could be going on?

 

[Tolak]

Need the test results for ammonia, nitrite & nitrate. Also, what water conditioner are you using to treat the water & how much? By siphon do you mean gravel vac?

The best preventative medication, and probably the cheapest is fresh water. Since you stated that you skipped water changes for some time, then did a larger one their are a couple of things that could have occurred.

Older water, which has not been changed has a higher total dissolved solids reading. Waste products in the water can drop the pH, a larger water change in a tank that has not been maintained can change these parameters quite a bit. This can cause stress on fish. Also, ammonia is less toxic at lower pH levels.

If this is the first time doing a gravel vac in 4 months you probably stirred up quite a bit of waste, this can cause an ammo spike. Often times water suppliers will jack up disinfectant rates for various reasons. Chloramine is a combination of chlorine & ammonia, most all water conditioners will deal with chloramine, not all deal with the ammonia left over.

 

[Sunam]

According to the strips, Nitrates were at 40, Nitrites at 0. I use the Tetra Easy Balance and Aqua Safe, both according to the directions on the bottle (10ml/10gal & 5ml/10gal respectively) Aqua Safe doesn't mention ammonia.

Yes on the siphon being the gravel vac.

I do think I stressed them out with that cleaning but it still doesn't explain the fact that my platy fish have had zero babies. When we brought them home, one was PG and followed all the standard signs for dropping. We even saw the babies. There were only a couple and then she died and none of the other females have dropped fry since. Any ideas on that one?

Need the test results for ammonia, nitrite & nitrate. Also, what water conditioner are you using to treat the water & how much? By siphon do you mean gravel vac?

The best preventative medication, and probably the cheapest is fresh water. Since you stated that you skipped water changes for some time, then did a larger one their are a couple of things that could have occurred.

Older water, which has not been changed has a higher total dissolved solids reading. Waste products in the water can drop the pH, a larger water change in a tank that has not been maintained can change these parameters quite a bit. This can cause stress on fish. Also, ammonia is less toxic at lower pH levels.

If this is the first time doing a gravel vac in 4 months you probably stirred up quite a bit of waste, this can cause an ammo spike. Often times water suppliers will jack up disinfectant rates for various reasons. Chloramine is a combination of chlorine & ammonia, most all water conditioners will deal with chloramine, not all deal with the ammonia left over.

 

[Sunam]

How's this for a surprise? I just checked my tap water and it read perfect on all 5 areas. Should I not add conditioner???

 

[arobinson1984]

No always add dechlor because it removes chlorine, chloramine and iron from the water that most test kits dont test for.

Andy

 

[LauraFrog]

Yep, you definitely need to add water ager or the chlorine in the water (and chloramine for that matter) will kill your cycle bacteria.

The things that cause platys to stop producing fry:
- They have had no access to males for some time and are running out of sperm (or the males they have access to have lost interest in them, this does happen sometimes)
- They are old
- They are not being fed consistently (twice a day, with a good amount) on a high quality feed containing a lot of protein
- The tank is too small or overcrowded
- They are stressed due to bullying by other fish, poor water quality, disease issues, lack of shelter or other problems

All of these factors will reduce the number of fry produced per brood, so if you have several of these issues at once (they don't have to be serious, just a little below optimum) your fry count may fall below 20 or so per drop. When there are this few fry, it's hard to notice that the female is pregnant at all - she will not get noticeably swollen and then noticeably shrink when she has the fry. It's probable that they are still producing fry, just not very many, so the fry are getting eaten and you aren't seeing them. Are you sure they are females?