Platys Dying At A Rate Of 1 Per Day

[aturner]

Tank size: 60l
pH: not known
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 5
kH: not known
gH: not known
tank temp:

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior): Bald patches, some damage to tails, sometimes losing eyes, decay around the mouth. We are losing approx. 1 Platy per day.

Volume and Frequency of water changes: 25%/14days

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: PhosGuard phosphate remover in pump. Phosphate was around 6ppm but now steady at 2ppm. My tap water is 2ppm.
Tank inhabitants: Plec, Clown Loaches, Neon Tetra and lots of Platys.

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): None.

Exposure to chemicals: LFS advised we remove any carbon media from pump and treat with Melafix daily and King British White Spot Control every 48hrs. We have been treating the tank in this way for 12days and are still losing approx. 1 Platy per day.

Digital photo (include if possible):

 

[fifefish]

change the rate of your water changes to 25%/7days

 

[WILDER]

Is your tank 60 litres its severely overstocked.
How many fish of each type do you have in the tank.
Clown loaches need 90 gallons tanks.

Finrot is mainly caused by bad water quality,.
Rotting mouth can be columnaris.
The white on the platy does it look like bleaching beneath the skin.
Are the eyes bulging out before they lose them.
Any signs of flicking and rubbing.

If the mouths have rotted away the fish needs to be put out of its misery.
Sounds like a
bad case of columnaris with the tank being overstocked.

Don't no why lfs said to use a whitespot med.
Fish will look like they have been sprinkled in salt if its whtieapot.
Sounds like a bad case of columnaris to me.
It can make the scales stredd and peel.
[URL="http/www.flippersandfins.net/flexibacter.htm"]http/www.flippersandfins.net/flexibacter.htm[/URL]

http/www.articledepot.co.uk/article-29320.htm

 

[aturner]

Thanks fifefish and wilder.

We have 1 plec, 3 clown Loaches, 2 Neon Tetras and approx. 20 Platys.

We were doing fine with the Platy population until one day SWMBO kept on finding one new baby fish after the other. She scooped out 60 into the baby tank! Until that point we'd just been finding the odd one or two.

I'll figure out a way to humanely euthenase the ones with rotted mouths.

I think the eyes may be bulging a little before they fall out. That hasn't happened all that often though.

Not sure if they've been rubbing or flicking, I'll make a point of looking out for that.

I think when I mentioned white spots to the LFS I should have really called them white patches. I've never seen the 'sprinkled with salt' spots before. The chap at the LFS was a trainee and to his credit he went to seek further advice. I guess that by having him as a middle man nobody got to ask me more questions about the 'spots' where it might have become clearer what they really were. A combination of my inexperience and bad luck I guess.

I'll take those pictures to the LFS at the weekend and see what they can give me to treat this flexibacter.

 

[WILDER]

Your tanks severely overstocked you will have to sort your stocking out or you will lose them all.
I would phone the lfs to take the babies if there well.
Water changes.
Sounds like popeye if the eyes were bulging out.
Anti internal bacteria med by interpet and pimafix.
Do a 30% water change and run some black carbon for aday to get the whitespot med out.
Then add the other meds I have suggested.

Jug of very cold water then add ice cubes till the water freezing cold.
If no ice cubes put the jug in the freezer till you can see a a sheet of ice.
Add the fish to the jug of ice water it should take about 30 seconds for the fish to die.
Leave the fish a while to make sure its passed on.
Check the gills are no long moving.

 

[electric yellow]

Oh poor things. I dont keep platys anymore due to finding them to delicate.

Also they dont like high nitrate (or any high readings) and if yours is 5ppm then thats way to high. Plecs particularly and clown loaches wont like that either.

 

[rhostog]

NitrAte levels of 5ppm are not too high for platys - nitrIte would be a problem. NitrAte levels of 20-40ppm are very common in UK tapwater; 5ppm is relatively low.

Good luck with the treatment - hope you start to see some improvement soon.

 

[aturner]

Thanks for the detailed help wilder.

I hope you don't get the impression I was doubting your advice but since the LFS gets all my business I thought it was reasonable to get their opinion on this too. I showed them the pictures and their advice was pretty much the same as yours...

I'm treating the tank with:
Interpet no. 8 Anti-fungus and Finrot treatment (treats flexibacter columnaris).
Melafix. (Presumably this is the same as the Pimafix/Primafix you mentioned?)

I couldn't find the black carbon filter, I hope it won't do any harm to skip that step?


I've decided not to use the baby tank in future. There are plenty of plants for baby fish to hide amongst and me intervening just causes a population explosion and overstocking.

Thanks also to electric yellow and rhostog. The nitrate levels were zero the last time I checked.

 

[WILDER]

Anti finrot and fungus med by interpet not that good on columnaris.
Also melafix is over rated its only good on cuts and wounds.

 

[aturner]

Anti internal bacteria med by interpet and pimafix.

Anti finrot and fungus med by interpet not that good on columnaris.
Also melafix is over rated its only good on cuts and wounds.

Are you saying that Interpet Treatment - No. 8 Anti Fungus & Finrot is the wrong treatment and that I should have used Interpet Treatment - No. 9 Anti Int. Bacteria?

I'll get some Pimafix.

 

[WILDER]

If no improvement in 4 days I would change meds.
You can use anti internal bacteria med by interpet or myxazin by waterlife.
Need to use pimafix with both meds I have suggested.

 

[aturner]

Thanks again. I should have the Pimafix in a few days and will start using that straightaway.

 

[Spanner]

The main thing I would say is get your stocking levels down or get a bigger tank the tank is very overstocked and the problem will reoccur if you don't, be careful with your plec as depending on the type it could grown quite large may not be big enough. I am surprised your colwn loach are showing no signs of infection as they are very sensitive. If I was you I would keep a small tank as a nusery tank as with a large amount of livebearers you will forever be fishing fry out (once the health of the fish improves). If you have a good relationship with your stockist they will quite often take the babies off your hands once they have stared to mature (I know its tempting to keep them). If there is a carbon pad in your filter it will effect how sucessful your treatment is. What filter are you using?

Maybe add a little aquarium salt to stop the spread.

Good luck

 

[aturner]

If no improvement in 4 days I would change meds.
You can use anti internal bacteria med by interpet or myxazin by waterlife.
Need to use pimafix with both meds I have suggested.

Continuing to lose 1 Platy per day on average. There are still some Platy's with the white cottony patches that don't seem to be getting better, but on the other hand they aren't getting remarkably worse either. None of my other fish are affected (luckily).

It will be 1 week today (Saturday) for the Interpet no. 8 anti Fungus and Finrot. Should I re-dose with that or switch to the Anti Internal Bacteria now?

I've been using Pimafix instead of Melafix since mid-week.

 

[aturner]

Thanks for the reply spanner.

I definitely will get the population down as soon as things are healthy again. The LFS are happy to take Platys off me. I get the impression that Platys will self-regulate their numbers to some degree, perhaps like they would do in the wild. There are plenty of plants for fry to hide amongst and I plan to take a step back now and let what happens happen. We had about 60 fry in the baby tank at one stage because we spent 2 hours fishing them out constantly one by one -- if we hadn't done that we probably wouldn't have all the problems we have today.

I have removed (and since lost!) the carbon filter. It's an Eheim 2213 external pump.

The Plec is the type that grows too large. Don't get me wrong, my LFS is great but I was livid when I found out I'd been sold one that keeps on growing. So, going to have to return it to the LFS sooner or later.

Seriously thinking about getting a 120 litre tank (or thereabouts).