Found Dead Fish In The Tank. Has Been Dead For About 2 Days.

[battlefish]

Hi.. I am fairly new to tropical fish.. I have a 10 gallon and had 5 platys.. One male and 4 female..

First of all I am still in the process of cycling the tank, but have been using Nutrafin Cycle in it, and since using it, my ammonia/nitrite levels have stayed zero... Furthermore I got some gravel (not too much) from an established tank as well... I also have AmQuel Plus in case of an emergency..

One of my female platys was not doing well last week... and I could not find him on Sunday.. I thought she might have been hiding, but today I still couldn't find her, and found her in some of the gravel dead... (I know this sounds irresponsible, but please don't flame me.. I'm good with my other pets fire bellied toads) but anyway I feel like it probably was not healthy to have a dead fish in the tank for 2 days... When I did a water change, I noticed there was this kinda fuzzy white stuff coming up from under the gravel.. I vacuumed as much as i could, but I was wondering if this could be potentially really bad i.e. disease in the tank now.. Another note: It is a pretty heavily planted tank...

The 2 original fish are still swimming lively... THe remaining two (a female and a male) which I got Saturday look okay, but I notice they swim a little bit off balance.... Like they both tilt very slightly to one side.... Is there any precautions I should take?

 

[LauraFrog]

This happens to everybody... I once found a very dear fish dead and jammed between the wood and the glass, she'd been there for a few days. It's always a horrible thing to find. Remove the dead fish and dispose of it ASAP. If there is fuzzy white stuff growing ON the actual gravel grains, remove the affected ones, rinse in very hot water, soak in tank water to cool and then replace. If it's between them, vacuuming should get rid of it.

If you have melafix or can get it cheaply, add it at the recommended dose. It's a good precaution against bacteria. It is not an antibiotic, and not strong enough to cure a bacterial infection, but will help prevent it becoming established. Because it is a natural product (active ingredient is melaleuca oil) it will not affect your filter like most medication. It is expensive though, so don't feel like you have to get it if you don't have the money; if you haven't got much you might be better hanging onto it in case one of the fish gets sick and you need a medication to treat its specific condition.

 

[twilight_angel]

how sad...