Platy Not Eating?

[Cookielici0us]

So... in all honesty I don't know my water parameters, but I've had my tank for five+ months now...and I've had this platy for about four of those five months and lately it hasn't been eating... I've noticed it's belly get thinner and thinner... and now it just looks like it's starving... and it's a horrible sight to see...

I used to feed them once a day...and now since I've noticed my platy being so thin i feed twice a day...

I have four guppies, two male, two female, one platy, three black skirt tetras, three neon tetras, two black neon tetras, and four loaches, one octo, and one blind cave tetra all in a 55 gallon tank...

I've been told that my set up is very odd...and in fact.. i used to have more but i got ich and ever since then i never restocked or re arranged my tank... and I change my water about once every two weeks :3 and every week i refill the evaporated water
but...

All this is about is feeding my platy....

I've been watching her during feeding time...and she goes up to the food but does NOT eat it... So I'm assuming that she sees it but is reluctant to eat it...

So... Today... I took her out and fed her...and two hours later the food was still there... on the bottom...and I'm not sure if I should put her back or not...because i dont have a quarantine tank...to actually LEAVE her in...(cause i cracked it D

but anyways... any thing...that I could really do for her...

because I used to have five platies...but all of them died except this one..and they all died about three-four months ago... so...this is just recent D:

 

[BerryAttack]

its usually best to keep guppies 1/3 male female ratio
tetras usually are best in 3+ groups minimum
and the octo i believe that those little algae eater like to be kept in 3+ groups minimum. they playfully chase each other around the tank which is funny to watch

BESIDES that lol

you'll need to test your water to see if anything is wrong with that.

when looking at your fish are her gills nice and red?
anything strange beside the thin body? bumps, holes, growths?
are her fins clamped, thinning or look eaten away?

 

[nrsmac]

What food brand and type are you using? Try using pellets if your using flakes (or vice versa.) Experiment with different brands and varieties. I recommend the Tetra crisps, or the Aqueon flakes.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

Is there anything wrong with her mouth? Or anything possibly stuck inside her throat?

 

[the_lock_man]

I suspect that since you don't have a test kit, you don't know a whole lot about cycling a filter, and didn't do daily water changes whilst the bacteria in your filter grew.

I suspect that this platy is just the hardiest of the bunch, the rest died earlier of ammonia and/or nitrite poisoning, she survived but the effects have been delayed.

 

[Cookielici0us]

._.;; uhm well My tank is already cycled =w=;; because even though i dont test my waters i do know about bacteria... and what not...

nothing is stuck in her mouth but her belly looks very Flat... and square... D: and her fins do look like they've been eaten away and sometimes clamped but often times thats when she's sleeping

i use a loooot of different types of food i use flakes, freeze dried, algae wafers, bottom feeder pellets, and once in awhile frozen blood worms

and i used to have three OCTOS... but.. two of them died because I'm assuming because of their sensitivity to temperature... but they died when i got them about two weeks after so.. whatever the reason.. I've read that if u kept an octo for longer than a month it'll most likely survive and i think that line is true. So, true.

and no the rest of the platies one got stuck in the filter the other ones died of ich

I'm wondering if she feels lonely and depressed... but I think thats like some other symptoms...

Oh... I used to have more female guppies too ... but I could never catch them while they were birthing...so they died...and also...the black skirts (I'm assuming) ate the babies

 

[the_lock_man]

So, did you do daily large water changes while your filter was cycling?

 

[LaurenRhiain]

I would try giving her frozen bloodworm. Fish go nuts for it and it's really very good for them. A good tip is to buy some frozen bloodworms and hand feed them to your platy using tongs or tweasers.

 

[KrystaK]

So what are your water parameters? Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrate, pH, (GH and KH if you have tests for that) If we know your water parameters we can help diagnose your problem.
Sounds to me like she's wasting, but I've never heard of a platy wasting itself, normally that happens to pickier or more sensitive fish. Is she showing any signs of lethargy?

You say 'her fins do look like they've been eaten away, and sometimes are clamped....' Sounds to me like fin rot and stress. I think you should do a fair sized water change, say 50% or so, or if you prefer since you have a larger tank do a water change of about 15% so about 13-15 gal every day for the next 3-4 days to get a fair amount of clean water in there. Clean water is the best cure for fin rot (In my opinion)


I also noticed you said you're now feeding twice a day... If she isn't eating than feeding twice a day isn't going to help, it's just more food for the other fish which will create more waste.
'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink '. Just go back to feeding once a day, it's all the rest of your fish need...

 

[Cookielici0us]

Well, no I don't have a testing kit and I usually when I'm free the pet store is closed...

and eaten away is VERY different from fin rot... I've had fin rot... and it looks nothing like it, it looks like chunks of it's tail is missing...as if something ATE IT off like if that was a hand i'd be missing a finger... rather than my skin peeling...

I find it very difficult to explain to you my tank and its history... I'm PRETTY sure when I say I've cycled my tank it means, YES...I've changed 30% of my water DAILY for TWO weeks upon gaining my 55 gallon.

She used to hide a lot... within the plants... but since my octo has been destroying it i took the plants out so they could grow more... I'm assuming since i took away her hiding spot she's been starving herself...

Assuming she likes plants and or finding a place to hide... ._.;; that's what im going for...

 

[the_lock_man]

I find it very difficult to explain to you my tank and its history... I'm PRETTY sure when I say I've cycled my tank it means, YES...I've changed 30% of my water DAILY for TWO weeks upon gaining my 55 gallon.

OK, thanks for confirming that.

I'm reading between the lines here a bit, cos you also said you've had the tank for 5 months and the platy for 4 of those 5 months, and then you said the above. I'm suspecting that those two weeks were before you got any fish.

Sorry to say, that isn't cycling a filter. To cycle a filter, you need a source of ammonia, either bottled or from fish. If my suspicions are right, you had neither of those, so when you were doing the 30% changes, unfortunately you were wasting your time.

WHen you popped the platies in, that was when you started cycling. After 4 months, it will almost certainly have cycled itself, but without daily water changes, those toxins will have built up quite badly.

THerefore, I stand by my original thought that your platy is suffering the delayed effects of ammonia and nitrite poisoning.

 

[Cookielici0us]

._.;; wait... I had fishes before my platy ._.;; so what happened was orginally i had ... well gee its hard to say how many fishes i had... but i had three platies and one male guppy, two blind cave tetras and two silver dollars I'm sure...maybe a few others but
I dumped them all into the 55 gallon and one of the octos died immediately (well i shouldnt say dumped but i did the whole prcoess of water acclimating and what not)
CYCLED IT
and then after a few weeks i decided since i have a big tank i should get more fishes I left them in the qaurantine tank for about two weeks and then i threw the NEW fishes that means including the platy,which is starrrving it's self. =w=;;

 

[the_lock_man]

OK so some assumptions were wrong, but it takes longer than 2 weeks to fish-in cycle, and the changes normally need to be more than 30%. Still reckon that's what the problem with the platy is.

When I got my first tank, it took 7 weeks to cycle.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

My fish tank was a nightmare and even after was followed by disease after disease, including wasting disease that sounds a lot like what you platy is experiencing... though I'm not sure that is what your fish has.

Possibly a parasite, or maybe it is being harassed.

 

[zain611]

Have you tried soaking your flake food in garlic juice? i heard it helps build up apitite