Fish Is Dying

[Luzi]

I have 2 platies in my 10L bowl and one seems to have a chronic illness. About a month ago i noticed she was spitting food out, not swallowing it and she was thin (not from dropping fry). Her poo was white and stringy. I thought it was internal parasites so i treated with a course of sterazin and she seemed to recover a little and ate the bloodworms i gave them.
I moved her to my bowl with one male about 2 weeks ago and although he seems to be doing fine and is eating well, she's recently stopped eating again (not even bloodworms) and in the last 2 days she's got a lot worse. She's still interested in food but she can't eat, she just spits it back up again and now she just sits on the bottom of the tank and gasps a little. When she swims, she tilts and sways a lot and she's gasping. Her anus looks like a round white blob.
I think she's a goner but I've added interpet Anti-internal bacteria to see if that helps a bit and to try to save the other fish. what has she got?

As well as this, the fish in my main tank (25L, 5 platies) have stringy white poo but they're all eating. my biggest orange platy has pale patches across her back and some of her scales look metallic. The edges of both my orange platy's scales turned dark. Could this be bacterial, fungal, parasitical or is it bad water quality?

 

[BethK]

What are your water test results?

 

[Luzi]

the pH is at 6,8 for the small tank and 6,6 for the big one but i dont have any other testers. I've just done a 30% water change to see if it helps.

 

[Harlequins]

What are your readings for ammonia & nitrite?

10 L bowl is too small for 2 platys,do you have a filter & heater in there?

 

[Assaye]

Correct me if I am wrong but this seems like a classic case of poor husbandry combined with over-diagnosis and medication.

Platies need warm, clean water (like all tropical fish) and unless you have a filter and heater in your bowl, it's unlikely you can provide that. The bowl is too small and keeping males and females in a 1:1 ratio is a recipe for stressed, sickly females as the males pester them and even being around passive males can stress the girls out because they are anticipating being harassed. Platies should be kept in a 10G upwards and have at least two females per male.

It's all very well to try to diagnose diseases but unless the fish have good living conditions with suitable tank-mates and clean water, there is only so much you can do. Most diseases and illnesses are caused or exacerbated by poor living conditions.

You need to be doing ammonia and nitrite tests as well, especially with sick fish. pH is very, very unlikely to be the problem. It takes a real catastrophe to shift the pH in a tank - remember that with fish, what the pH is is often unimportant as fish can adapt. It's whether the pH changes that is important.

Do another water change (preferably 100% with carefully adjusting the fish to the new water) and take a sample of the old water to be tested at a local pet store. Get yourself a liquid ammonia and nitrite kit while you are there and test your water daily while the fish are ill. Any sign of elevated ammonia or nitrite and do a water change.

Look to getting a 10 gallon for your platies and try to rehome/add more to get a 2:1 or even 3:1 balance of females to males. Make sure your tank is filtered and heated and keep testing the water.

Even if it is a disease, the fish simply won't be better until her living conditions improve.

 

[loraxchick]

i honestly would retreat for internal parasites if she had stringy white poo, is tilting to her side and spitting out food. classic symptoms. any other fish affected?
no more antibiotics-doubtful it is bacterial. have you seen her poo lately? treat the entire tank.
best of luck
cheers

 

[Luzi]

Fish was very ill and died this morning but her tankmate still seems fine so i'm just going to keep an eye on him.
I doubt it was internal parasites because after 2 courses of sterazin she didn't improve, and i don't think parasites kill fish often.
In the final stages she couldn't keep her balance and just lay on the floor gasping. Her condition went downhill 2 days ago when she started laying on the floor of the tank, yesterday she was spinning when swam up and down and lying on her side. If the male starts looking ill, i'll treat with bacterial meds as sterazin hasn't worked, but for now he seems fine.

My platies are coldwater (22*ish) fish - When we got them we knew nothing about fish and just put them in our unheated tank. They did fine and soon 3 platies turned into 7. Even i could see this was ridiculously overcrowded so we got the bowl and moved a couple of fish. I couldn't get a 10G tank because we just don't have room for one.
I don't have test kits beause i only discovered what ammonia, nitrates etc. were when i joined the TFF a few weeks ago and seeing as all my fish were doing fine in their established tanks I didn't think i needed them. I've ordered some test kits which should arrive this week.
I do a 30% water change for the bowl every 2 days because i don't have a filter and this has got them through fine for a long time now.

I think the pale patches on my main tank fish are caused by bad water quality - the tank is still quite crowded. I'm doing 20% daily water changes to keep the levels good until the test kits arrive. Any more adivce on this?