What's wrong with my blue wag?!

[Mamaorca77]

Hey guys, new here and just getting back into fish. We had a 50 and 20 gal yrs ago and had great luck with our fish. This time, I'm having issues!! First I made the mistake of buying fish from Wal-Mart. Out of the 6 originals, I have 2 left..and a cpl early replacement guppy males who are hanging on.. Ok, so I have a 50 gal that was cycled (fishless) before adding fish and it's had fish now for 3 wks. I have 1 albino cory, 3 male guppies, 2 white clouds, 1 mm platy (male), 1 red wag female Platy, 1 blue wag male platy, 1 sunburst female Platy, and 2 blue female platies. Until an hr ago, there was also another sunburst that was male and a (I think!) Female white lyretail Molly. The Molly actually bit the dust in the past 15 mins and was fine 30 mins ago..swimming happily with her tank mates. I noticed she got stuck in a plant, went downstairs after she got loose and came back to her dead. No clue what's going on there, but..the issue now is my blue wag. He was bought at an actual fish store, NOT wally world, 3 days ago. First day, he was cool. Yesterday, he seemed to hide more than hang with the crew, but earlier today he was out and about. Now, he's hiding again (He tried to go under my skull decor!) N he's swimming frantically! Nobody else seems to be in distress, so I wondered if I should quarantine him, jic? Sorry pic is blurry, he was wiggling!

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Sorry I can't tell anything from the picture. If you take a number of pictures and put them on your computer, you can pick out a couple of good ones that show the problem, then post them on here.

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If fish start doing funny things it is usually water quality. The best thing to do is a 75% water change and complete gravel clean ASAP. And then do another 75% water change and gravel clean each day for a week or two, or until the issue is resolved.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Big water changes dilute nutrient build up in the water and they dilute harmful disease organisms in the water, so it's a win win both ways.

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If you can, test the aquarium water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate & pH and then post the results on here. If you don't have test kits then take a glass full of tank water to the local petshop and have them test it for you. Write the results down at the shop and bring them back here for us to scrutinise We need numbers too, so if the petshop says the water is fine, ask them what the ammonia level is in a number. They should say 0ppm (0 parts per million) or 0.5mg/l (0.5 milligrams per litre), or something along those lines.

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Reduce feeding to once every second day and only give the fish a small amount. They should eat it all within 20-30 seconds. Remove any uneaten food after a couple of minutes, and remove any food that sinks to the bottom.

 

[Mamaorca77]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Sorry I can't tell anything from the picture. If you take a number of pictures and put them on your computer, you can pick out a couple of good ones that show the problem, then post them on here.

------------------------
If fish start doing funny things it is usually water quality. The best thing to do is a 75% water change and complete gravel clean ASAP. And then do another 75% water change and gravel clean each day for a week or two, or until the issue is resolved.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Big water changes dilute nutrient build up in the water and they dilute harmful disease organisms in the water, so it's a win win both ways.

------------------------
If you can, test the aquarium water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate & pH and then post the results on here. If you don't have test kits then take a glass full of tank water to the local petshop and have them test it for you. Write the results down at the shop and bring them back here for us to scrutinise We need numbers too, so if the petshop says the water is fine, ask them what the ammonia level is in a number. They should say 0ppm (0 parts per million) or 0.5mg/l (0.5 milligrams per litre), or something along those lines.

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Reduce feeding to once every second day and only give the fish a small amount. They should eat it all within 20-30 seconds. Remove any uneaten food after a couple of minutes, and remove any food that sinks to the bottom.

Thanks for your reply. Last night I tested after the big white (molly?) died and all my numbers were normal. 0 across the board and 6.9ph. That was my 1st thought, too. I'm actually about to run to my lps for supplies and I'm gonna get them to recheck. Blue wag seems a bit more normal today, swimming with his pals, eating and staying mid tank... I'm honestly thinking it's the fish. All the dead ones have been Wal-Mart stock. My blue was bought at an actual fish store, but I'm thinking MAYBE he was stressed because my mm (only other male platy) is about twice his size..could've been some bullying going on?! Also, I'm thinking 2 of my females are preggo. My red wag seems to get bigger every day, but her markings make it hard to see a gravid spot, same with my big blue female, who is MASSIVE,btw. Lol I really don't remember having these issues with my other tanks. On the bright side, my lfs and Wal-Mart have return policies, so I'm not losing money, but I hate that these guys are having issues!!

 

[Colin_T]

The bullying you see from the big platy is probably a male trying to breed with females, or a male telling other males to go away. If you post a pic showing a side view of your platies we can tell you what sex they are. Or you can check their anal fin (the bottom fin) and see what shape it is. Male livebearers like Mollies, Guppies, Swordtails & Platies have a long straight anal fin, whereas the females have a fan or triangular shaped anal fin.

The males anal fin starts out fan/ triangular shaped when they are young but as they mature it develops into a tube called a gonopodium, which they use for breeding.

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If you have female platies that have been kept with males during the last 6 months, then the females will be pregnant. During breeding male livebearers impregnate the females with a number of sperm packets (usually 4-6 packets). The females carry these around in their body until conditions are good, then they use one sperm packet to fertilise eggs inside their body. The eggs hatch and develop for about one month inside the female before she gives birth to live, free swimming young called fry.

After giving birth the female will develop another batch of eggs (if environmental conditions are good) and can then use another sperm packet to fertilise them. So any female livebearer can potentially get pregnant up to about 6 times without any males being present.

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If you do take a sample of water to the petshop for testing, get them to check the general hardness (GH). Mollies like hard alkaline water and if your pH is only 6.9, you might have soft water, which would possibly contribute to the molly's demise. However, diseases and water quality will kill fish quicker than soft water, but it is something you need to check. Mollies need water with a GH over 200ppm and most other livebearers need a GH over 150ppm.

 

[Mamaorca77]

So lol..I was jumping back to ask a question that u already answered!! Thanks! One of my platies whom I thought was female, well from your description is actually a young male! My m/f ratio was off! Again, thanks Wal-Mart! The (very nice, but not very knowledgeable, it seems) young man who helped me assured me I had 2 males and 4 females. I had done a bit of research on sexing platies since I'd never kept them, and he said the triangle shaped anal fin was a young female. Oops! That was the red wag that I couldn't determine a gravid spot on due to her (his!) markings! So, now I'm down to a possible preggo and 2 other females who don't appear to be yet! Update on my blue wag, after heading to get my water tested, they also mentioned upping my ph, but did tell me our water here generally has a ph of 7 or a little over. So, got back and did a roughly 50% water change without the tabs. Tested and ph was smack on 7! Fantastic, right? Wrong!! Blue wag swam directly to the top after the tank was refilled and nosedived to the bottom...and RIP blue wag! Everybody else seems fine, so... Needless to say, I'm glad I was on vacation this week and could deal with all this ASAP, however I will now be testing daily until I'm 100% sure everything is good in the hood, and hopefully my expectant Mama will have her fry..THEN I'll worry about fixing my m/f ratio and adding some more friends. Been scrolling thru the site and since I'm a noob with platy and Cory, have learned they are shoaling fish and need groups, not just a cpl here and there. I'm kinda in shock cuz my 50 back in the day had quite a few fish most pros here consider "advanced" while platy, guppies, etc are considered beginner, and I have had a horrible time with them where I had little to none with the others! Leave it to me to be backwards! Oh, and fyi for any beginners reading this, let me strongly suggest reading these forums before you buy ANYTHING and BUY GUPPIES! Not only are they absolutely gorgeous, but those lil guys are TOUGH! I think mine are my faves now. I have a cobra, delta red and leopard and love them! As anxious as I am to see my platy fry, I'm more anxious to get some ladies for my handsome guys and see what happens! Thank you, Colin , for your help and info!

 

[Colin_T]

To be fair to the person who served you at the shop, young male livebearers have an anal fin that looks like a female's anal fin until they mature. So if you got a young male, then it would be more difficult to tell the true sex of that fish.

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As for male/ female ratios. With livebearers you want at least 4 females per male, and preferably more. The best way to keep most livebearers (but not swordtails) is in separate tanks for males and females. This allows the females to produce babies without being hassled by males who are constantly trying to breed with them. Then every month or so you add a male to the tank and they can do their thing, then after a week the male can be removed and put back in his own tank leaving the females to carry on being mums

With Swordtails, a dominant female can change sex and become a male if there are no male fish in the tank for several months. For these guys you try to have 1 male present most of the time, or if you have a female only tank, then put a male in there every couple of weeks, and leave him there for a few days before moving him out.

Make sure you have lots of floating plants in the tank for the females to hide in when giving birth, and for the baby fish to hide in. The best plant for livebearers is Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides). It normally floats on the surface but can also be planted in the substrate where it grows into a lovely bright green shrub shaped plant.

If you don't have live plants then plastic plants can be left to float around the surface and they will help.

Do not move pregnant female livebearers into small breeding traps/ nets. It stresses them out and they can go into labour before they are meant to and you get premature babies that die.

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Your pH is probably a bit low for Mollies and I'm guessing you GH will be too. So don't get any more Mollies

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Update on my blue wag, after heading to get my water tested, they also mentioned upping my ph, but did tell me our water here generally has a ph of 7 or a little over. So, got back and did a roughly 50% water change without the tabs. Tested and ph was smack on 7! Fantastic, right? Wrong!! Blue wag swam directly to the top after the tank was refilled and nosedived to the bottom...and RIP blue wag!

What are the tabs you mention here?
Did you use a water conditioner/ dechlorinator on the new water before it was added to the tank?

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Most livebearers are genetically weak these days (and for the last 20 years) due to inbreeding. They are so bad that the breeders have been collecting wild caught fish of the same species (and different species to hybridise) just to add new bloodlines and to help make the fish a bit stronger. Guppies are a classic example where they have cross bred them with Endler's Livebearer to stop all the babies being born with deformities and to stop the fish from dropping dead when you look at them the wrong way, (slight over exaggeration about dropping dead when you look at them but they are genetically weak).

Livebearers are also heavily stocked in shop tanks due to their high demand by customers. This means the water quality in that tank is more likely to be less than optimal and the fish are going to be more stressed.

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Tetras, barbs, rasboras and Corydoras occur in groups of hundreds or even thousands of individuals, and some of their marine counterparts occur is schools of millions. In an aquarium they need to be kept in groups of 10 or more.

Livebearers are a fish that live in small schools or groups consisting of 20-50 individuals of their own kind. If there are not enough fish in their group they will sometimes hang out with other species of fish that are a similar size and shape to them. In good conditions, or when waterways shrink, these groups can come together to form larger schools.

Male Livebearers tend to have loosely defined territories frequented by females. Sometimes there will be a number of males (bachelor groups) in the same territory. The males will chase other males away so they can breed with all the females. The females freely move around waterways in search of food and safe areas to give birth. Males will follow the females but are usually driven away by other males when they enter a bigger male's territory.

Female livebearers control the group and use the males for reproductive purposes only

 

[Mamaorca77]

The tablets are Tetra water care kit. It has 3 diff tabs, 1 for bacteria growth, 1 for decholorinating and 1 for pH correction.

I don't plan on more mollies since until I can upgrade, I'd prefer to keep my platies, guppies and cories happy. As I have been researching, I learned I somehow ended up with a male and female white cloud each, so with all the potential fry, I don't think new neighbors would be a good idea! They are a new breed for me, but lovely little fish that I'm possibly going to rehome in my 10 gal that my sons have in their room w 2 goldfish. Seems goldfish and clouds enjoy the same type water conditions and the colors together would be striking!
At the moment, I have artificial plants but plan to remedy that as soon as all the drama I've had is resolved. I have made my girls a nice spot with good cover from my normal decor plants and a cpl floating plants, along with moving my skull a bit closer. A friend is bringing me a bridge and cave he used in his 30 gal until his turtle outgrew it, so there will be more soon! I wanted to share my platies w you since they have been my major issue. The blue is the female I'm pretty sure is close to having fry and the male I thought was female is the red wag. And, you're likely right about the guy at Wal-Mart, cuz even researching online his gender was questionable! Lol I'm actually sitting in front of my tank now and have been laughing at my sunburst female trying to get Mr Wag's attention and being stalked by my cobra guppy! She is def interested in the way, but he seems indifferent, so I'm not thinking he's the daddy of Blue's fry. Truly, I hope it was either my blue wag or my mm, both were gorgeous and so is she, the fry will be . And I've already rehomed a cpl since my bf just upgraded his tank n has nothing but a few danio and algae eaters!!

 

[Mamaorca77]

This didn't upload w the others

 

[Colin_T]

White Cloud Mountain Minnows are a cool water fish and age quickly in tropical aquariums. They should be fine with small goldfish in an unheated tank. However, they do prefer to be in groups of 6 or more so when you move them, perhaps get a few more. They are egg layers and even if they breed in the tank, it is unlikely many if any fry will survive due to other fish eating the eggs and babies. If you have the White Clouds in their own tank with lots of plants then some of the fry will survive.

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The red wagtail platy (red body black fins) is female, but I can't see the anal fin on the blue platy due to the black background. If you have a flash on the camera, make sure it is on when photographing fish. And open the curtains and turn the room and tank lights on to maximise the light in the tank. Digital cameras struggle in low light

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The Tetra Water Care Kit has "Start Zyme" which is a dormant dried filter bacteria that helps get the filters cycling faster. Because the tank has cycled you don't need to add this anymore.

The kit has "Correct pH" that contains salt (sodium chloride), potassium chloride and what they call buffers, probably sodium bicarbonate. Your Corydoras won't be particularly happy with this stuff, although it should only be pretty low levels of sodium & potassium chloride.
If you want to increase the pH and hardness a bit you would be better off using a Rift Lake water conditioner at about 1/4 strength. This conditioner is a white powder consisting primarily of calcium and magnesium with a few trace elements and is better for the Corydoras than salt. However, it will raise the pH more than the salt tabs you are currently using.

The kit also contains "conditioner/ chlorine remover". This is sodium thiosulphate and is the standard dechlorinating agent, although normally it is sold in a bottle where it has been mixed with water and you add x number of drops per 5 litres of water.
This conditioner (tablet) should be added to a bucket of tap water and aerated for about 30 minutes before the water is added to the tank. Use 1 tablet for 5 gallons of tap water to remove chlorine. However, you are in the US and might have chloramine in the tap water. Most water conditioners suggest using double dose for chloramine. You might want to check the directions in the box (if there is any) to confirm this, otherwise send an email to Tetra and ask them if you should be using 1 tablet for 5 gallons when you have chloramine in the water.

If you do have chloramine in the water and you add sodium thiosulphate, it will break the chlorine ammonia bond and remove the chlorine from the water. But there will be a small amount of ammonia left behind. This should be picked up by the filter in the tank. A lot of people that have chloramine in the water supply will use a conditioner that binds with the ammonia after the chlorine is removed, and this makes it less likely to affect the fish when it gets added to the tank. Your water supplier should be able to tell you if they add chlorine or chloramine to the drinking water, and it should be on their website for you to view.

 

[Mamaorca77]

Lol wow so with the red being female, that def explains why it had zero interest in the sunburst! And I will def try to get a better pic of the blue but I couldn't get my flash to turn on due to low battery and it's midnight in good old Tennessee, USA ..so opening curtains won't help. I actually had to tip the phone because the blue kept swimming in front of my light and the glare was almost blinding! Gotta love LED lights! My 50 had the old fashioned bar light and I always thought it was too dark. That's not a prob anymore for sure! Ok..i was almost 100% sure the blue is a preg female, she has the fan shaped anal fin, I mostly included her to a)show off how pretty she is and b) confirm pregnancy. I managed to get better pics using my son's phone, and have discovered Ms Blue is camera shy and/or has attitude! Chased her around for 10 mins! If she is preggo, should I remove the guppies since they seem to enjoy following my girls and hanging out in the plants? I know most ppl don't like breeder boxes, and I would hate to lose all those pretty fry!

 

[Colin_T]

Yes the blue platy is female, and she is probably pregnant but not very far, so you are unlikely to see any babies from her for a while (3 weeks maybe).

Guppies should not bother the female platy especially if she hides in the plants. And if the fish are well fed they tend to ignore the babies. The other reason not to move the guppies now is because you lost a fish in this tank and they could have a disease, which could be transferred into another tank. Hold off for a week and if everyone is ok, and you have a spare cycled tank you can move the guppies into, then move the guppies. But try not to stress the female platies when removing the guppies.

Your blue platy didn't want her photo taken because it is late and she didn't want you seeing her after a late night.
Now go to bed

 

[Mamaorca77]

Lol thank u so much for your help! Like I mentioned earlier, this is my vacation week (3 days left, blah!) And I'm totally off my schedule! I go to work at 4am, so generally I'm out by 830-9 at the latest since I get up at 230! Definitely laying it down for the night now. Binging Game of Thrones and having my midnight snack. Have a great day, and thanks again!