SICK platy fish - please help identify the sickness!

[sharkfur]

Hello,
Can anyone recognise which sickness is hurting my platy tank? I have an idea, but I am not sure. Basically out of the blue (no new fish added, no change in diet, but doing weekly water changes), quite a few of my platies started having light patches on their bodies -at first i thought it would be some kind of fungus, but it's not fluffy, not fuzzy, it's like white wounds. Some of them have it on the top of their head, some on the back, one at the base of their tale fins. I don't want to give them inaccurate meds, but do you think I'm right to believe this is bacterial like fin rot and fungus? Some that are very heavily infected started hunching a bit, having trouble swimming properly, and just today I noticed one of them has a few white spots now, just a few. I am guessing that is going to be the stress they are under... with stress ick.. Interestingly, I also keep having somewhat higher than desired nitrate levels constantly, even after water changes,it's the same value. What do you think, what can I do?Sorry for the bad quality images, i just can't take crisp images with my phone in these lights, and the fish constantly moving.

Oh - an extra question -everywhere I go people say to take out the filters when I medicate the fish - well, where can I put it for X days so I don't kill the bacteria on it? How would you do it?


Thank you so much for your help,
Mike

 

[Meg0000]

Hello,
Can anyone recognise which sickness is hurting my platy tank? I have an idea, but I am not sure. Basically out of the blue (no new fish added, no change in diet, but doing weekly water changes), quite a few of my platies started having light patches on their bodies -at first i thought it would be some kind of fungus, but it's not fluffy, not fuzzy, it's like white wounds. Some of them have it on the top of their head, some on the back, one at the base of their tale fins. I don't want to give them inaccurate meds, but do you think I'm right to believe this is bacterial like fin rot and fungus? Some that are very heavily infected started hunching a bit, having trouble swimming properly, and just today I noticed one of them has a few white spots now, just a few. I am guessing that is going to be the stress they are under... with stress ick.. Interestingly, I also keep having somewhat higher than desired nitrate levels constantly, even after water changes,it's the same value. What do you think, what can I do?Sorry for the bad quality images, i just can't take crisp images with my phone in these lights, and the fish constantly moving.

Oh - an extra question -everywhere I go people say to take out the filters when I medicate the fish - well, where can I put it for X days so I don't kill the bacteria on it? How would you do it?


Thank you so much for your help,
Mike

I don't know what your fish have but for the filter, people probably talked about activated carbon because it would remove the medication from the water.

 

[Munroco]

What Meg0000 said. Take out the carbon sponge only, if you have one. (With Juwel filters it's usually a black sponge, I don't know if this is true for other carbon sponges) Do not take the other filter media out.

 

[Colin_T]

They have excess mucous on their body and fins. This is normally caused by poor water quality or an external protozoan infection like Costia, Chilodonella or Trichodina.

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How long has the tank been set up for?
How often do you do water changes and how much do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

Check your aquarium water and your tap water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. Post results in numbers here.

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Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

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If there's no improvement after a couple of big water changes, add some salt.
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate will affect some plants. The lower dose rate will not affect plants.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.