help with platy

[Mr F.ishy]

hi everyone,

i have an orange platy that has been acting abit weird over the past few days, im not sure of the sex but he/she is hanging around the bottom of the tank alot and hiding all the time and when i feed the fish the platy dont come up for food, i cant see any visual problems, only a little red spot near its eye apart from that nothing else i can see, well if u can help me out that would be great, thanks oh 1 other thing...how do u tell the sex of platies? i have no idea

 

[bigfish]

Red spot above eye could indicate a bacterial infection from poor water quality, do u have test kits for ammonia and nitrite?

 

[Mr F.ishy]

i dont have any testing kits i will get a kit soon, ive only had my fish tank, maybe 2 months and the water has gone cloudy ive been doing 25% water changes every other day to reduce the cloudy water but no improvment, to be honest all the fish look like there gonna die soon oh well

 

[Kossy]

Sounds a bit like swim-bladder. If they can't swim to the surface its probably swim bladder. See my sig on diseases for more info. If it can go to the surface its probably a bacterial infection.

 

[Mr F.ishy]

so if my platy has got a bacterial infection, is there any medicine available?. i have another question too...i think i might be over feeding my fish a little, how much food would u feed the fish, because my water seems to be getting cloudy and the filter is just full of flakes that got sucked in

i have

5 platies
3 mollies
2 guppies
1 dwarf frog
1 cat fish (forgot what breed )

 

[Alien Anna]

It certainly sounds as if you could be over-feeding. Then again, if your tank isn't properly cycled, maybe your fish are feeling too unwell to eat.

Please follow the link in my sig and make sure you're familiar with how to cycle a tank and what do to to improve your water quality. I'm assuming you've got a bacterial bloom from the ammonia and nitrite in your tank but you need to test your water to confirm my suspcions.

Keep doing the water changes every day (being careful to use dechlorinated water), but only do 10-15% because you may be slowing the cycling process down a tad. My article has other suggestions to how to get your fish through this.

Good luck.