All my platy fry dying the same way except one??? Is it me? Or is it the circle of life??

[carligraceee]

Hey guys! If you see my other posts, you will see I have some platy fry. They are almost a month old and were growing like crazy! All of a sudden, two of them started thinning out in the tail area and having trouble swimming and coming up to eat. Then they died the next day. It didn't happen again for awhile but then SEVERAL of them started having a thin tail and trouble swimming (they were also working hard to breathe). My nitrites have been a little high recently but have been going down (which is my thought for the heaving breathing) but the thinning out tail and fins and trouble swimming is puzzling me! I only have one more right now who has been bigger than the rest the whole time. He comes up and eats and swims around a lot except when the light is off, he lays down and I think sleeps lol. If you need, I can grab pictures of them but what I described is exaclty what has been happening. Does this happen a lot? Is it a genetics thing? Or is it my fault?


I feed them Hakari bloodworms!

 

[Sgooosh]

even if your nitrite is higher than 0 it could kill or hurt fishiies. remember in the wild they give birth to like 100 and only 1-3 survive because of... many reasons. fry are very sensitive so save what you can and delete the nitrites faster i think you can do this by doing a water change with some bacteria

 

[Slaphppy7]

Hey guys! If you see my other posts, you will see I have some platy fry. They are almost a month old and were growing like crazy! All of a sudden, two of them started thinning out in the tail area and having trouble swimming and coming up to eat. Then they died the next day. It didn't happen again for awhile but then SEVERAL of them started having a thin tail and trouble swimming (they were also working hard to breathe). My nitrites have been a little high recently but have been going down (which is my thought for the heaving breathing) but the thinning out tail and fins and trouble swimming is puzzling me! I only have one more right now who has been bigger than the rest the whole time. He comes up and eats and swims around a lot except when the light is off, he lays down and I think sleeps lol. If you need, I can grab pictures of them but what I described is exaclty what has been happening. Does this happen a lot? Is it a genetics thing? Or is it my fault?


I feed them Hakari bloodworms!

If you have ANY nitrItes, your tank isn't cycled, and the poor water quality is most likely stressing your fish.

 

[carligraceee]

If you have ANY nitrItes, your tank isn't cycled, and the poor water quality is most likely stressing your fish.

Yeah I knew this. I made the mistake of changing the filter cartridge awhile ago and restarted the entire thing. Could that be it? I have been doing 50% water changes once a week- the nitrites are pretty low now and I have some nitrates present too (20ppm). Is that the reason they are dying?

But why are their fins thinning?

 

[Slaphppy7]

Yes...NEVER change out your media (regardless of what anyone tells you), just rinse it in old tank water, NOT tap water.
Media only needs changing when it is falling apart, and even then, just a bit at a time.

Continue testing and doing WC's daily until you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrItes, and some nitrAtes.

Use the API liquid test kit, and Seachem Prime for your conditioner.

The thread thinning could very well be from poor water quality, or just poor stock, in general...I'm betting on the former

 

[carligraceee]

Yes...NEVER change out your media (regardless of what anyone tells you), just rinse it in old tank water, NOT tap water.
Media only needs changing when it is falling apart, and even then, just a bit at a time.

Continue testing and doing WC's daily until you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrItes, and some nitrAtes.

Use the API liquid test kit, and Seachem Prime for your conditioner.

The thread thinning could very well be from poor water quality, or just poor stock, in general...I'm betting on the former

Thank you! I use Seachem but I don't use the liquid test kits, I use the strips (I have saving up for the liquid one). What should I do to save my last fry? She is doing well now but I really want her to pull through...

 

[Slaphppy7]

Good, get that liquid kit, the strips aren't very reliable.

Best thing for the fry is clean, treated water from WC's.

Get them a good quality flake food, bloodworms are OK, but feed sparingly, they need a variety of foods.

 

[carligraceee]

here is the water! how do i fix this?

 

[Slaphppy7]

LARGE water change, dose with Prime, for the entire volume of the tank.

 

[carligraceee]

LARGE water change, dose with Prime, for the entire volume of the tank.

okay- how big of a water change? 90%?

 

[Slaphppy7]

Yes...sorry for the late reply

 

[Naughts]

Yeah I knew this. I made the mistake of changing the filter cartridge awhile ago and restarted the entire thing. Could that be it? I have been doing 50% water changes once a week- the nitrites are pretty low now and I have some nitrates present too (20ppm). Is that the reason they are dying?

But why are their fins thinning?

Stressed fish will clamp their fins close to their body instead of holding them up/ out.

 

[carligraceee]

Okay, I did the water change yesterday evening. How long should I wait to test the water again?

 

[carligraceee]

Stressed fish will clamp their fins close to their body instead of holding them up/ out.

That makes sense! Gosh I feel so bad... my fish is definitely pregnant again so I want to make sure what I was doing was good. Here is what I did:

I removed the adults and hunted the babies (I did this as soon as I saw her belly decrease and her start swimming more).
Once I had as many as the babies (I hunted every now and then for a couple of days for any stragglers), I would put them in a breeders box that was clear and made of plastic.
Then I put the adults back.


For feeding:
Large amounts of bloodworms until I saw them eat less, then decreased the amount I fed.

I put them in a to-go tank during water changes.

Is that okay? Should I change anything? Everything is welcome!

 

[Naughts]

Test daily until the tank is cycled.

A breeder box is fine for young fry. Some people put the pregnant fish in them but this can result in her aborting the fry or dying.

Leave fish in the tank to do water changes. Chasing and netting fish is most stressful (they will think they are being preyed upon) and should be kept to the absolute minimum. Take care not to slosh things about too much and be aware of where the fish are, and you will be able to change up to 75% of the water and clean the gravel and filter without removing them.