My Platy Is Very Sick...

[LauraFrog]

20L tank, fully cycled, running for months with one death (old age, confirmed, months ago.)
No water parameters on hand, but I assure you that it's fine. PH stable at 6.8, 1g/l salt, cycling.
1 bristlenose, 2 mollies, 5 platies.

My male is in trouble. He has been hiding and looking shy for a few days and yesterday I noticed a bit of his tail fin missing. He was sort of staying very still with his fins all tucked up. I was hoping that he was just a bit scared of the new fish and would relax. He was hanging on the surface gasping before and I decided that I'd been in denial long enough and pulled him out. He's eating as far as I know and he tried to swim away from the net when I isolated him but when I got him he just fell into the net. Now he's lying on the bottom of the hospital container gasping.

I introduced a new platy to the tank two or three days ago. She was from a fish store I don't usually go to but she was too gorgeous to pass up. I checked the whole tank she was in for signs of disease - nada. She's happy, healthy, darting around the tank with all the others. The only fish that's sick is my male. There is one tiny - TINY white spot on him just at the base of his tail. I'm scared to dose his hospital container with ich remedy in case I send him over the edge because I'm not at all sure that that's the problem. PLEASE HELP ME.

 

[WILDER]

Your tanks well overstocked and by the symtoms you are discribing can point to bad water quality so need to rule it out first.
Take a sample of your water to the lfs and tell them to write the readings down for you.
Do an immediate water change for now and increase aeration in the tank.
Check the gills over for being pale with excess mucas on them, to red and inflamed.
The white spot on his tail if bigger than a grain of salt is not whitespot, usually most of them time they are bacterial.

 

[LauraFrog]

Thanks...
I have no way of getting test kits in a small country town. This annoys me no end because I have no way of testing the water quality. I did a 25% change, but the other fish were and still are fine before and after the new water. I still have the male isolated. He was a lot more active yesterday afternoon, but now he's gone back to lying on the bottom. His gills look normal at the moment but they flare out more than normal. The white spot is gone, no idea what it was.
The edges of the tear in his tail fin are darker than the rest of it and so is the tip of the gonopodium. I'm very worried about fin rot. I don't dare up the salt in the main tank because I'd kill the bristlenose.

As for the stocking, I got flamed on another forum for overstocking the tank and I was told that the most I could possibly fit in there was two platies, so I laughed and ignored it completely because that sounds quite ridiculous. I was told eight fish that size by the people in my LFS. I know them well and I trust them not to tell me stuff like that just to make a sale. I've seen them refuse to sell a mixed-breed donated kitten, asking price $30, to an unsuitable home when offered more than $200 for it - Not Kidding. I'm not saying they're foolproof - how many do you think i could fit in there? I'm not sure who to believe, I've had everything from two fish to fifteen fish. Both extreme figures are ridiculous (I would never put fifteen fish in there!) but there have been so many different opinons that I just can't work out how many fish I can fit in the tank. The fish seem happy and it's a peaceful community. The male platy's tail is the first bit of nipping that I've seen and for all I know he could have caught it on something.

Please help me. I get so confused about all this. First tank, first fish. I'm overrun with fry into the bargain LOL.

 

[Spooky76]

If you have fry on the way too, your going to struggle in a tank that small I think.

If you have a local fish shop like you said you have - they will sell a test kit. Its one of the most basic bits of equipment you need to keep fish. As wilder said - the most common cause of most of these problems is bad water. It might be cycled, all the other fish might be OK, but it could still be bad water. You cant judge your water by how long the tanks been running, anything could have happened.

What filter have you got in it ?
What temp is the tank at ?
How do you do water changes ?
Have you added any new fish lately ?
Have you increased aeration ?

 

[LauraFrog]

The filter that's in there is the one that came with the tank, bio-balls, sponge, activated carbon and bio-rings. I change 25% of the water each week, sometimes more. Temp is about 23-24. The aeration is where the water falls back in from the filter a considerable height but I did it by hand for about an hour yesterday because the power went out, I was in there every ten minutes aerating the water so I didn't lose any cycle bacteria.
The platy looks a LOT better now, he's swimming around the new container and he's stopped gasping. I'm still a bit worried because I've been putting in food and a small amount has gone but I've had to siphon out a lot of it to avoid sending the water off. There's no poo. Could he be 'bunged up'? I don't know how to fix that. He doesn't look like he's dying any more but I don't think he's out of danger.

EDIT: I've been taking out the fry and keeping them in plastic bins. So far I have more than a hundred and I've lost hardly any. I have homes organised for quite a few when they get a bit bigger. Ranger dropped yesterday and the fry are magnificent - about 40 and every single one is either a dalmatian, a tuxedo like their mum, a frecklie, or a patchie.

 

[LauraFrog]

There's white fuzz around his gills and the edge of the wound in his tail was going dark. That was enough for me to confirm that it was fungal. It's certainly not poor water quality, there was no improvement when I had him in isolation with the water being changed every day (3 1/3 water changes). I dosed the container with white spot remedy (no multi-cure and no lfs open on the weekend. I keep whitespot remedy in the house because it's used for treating chytridiomycosis in frogs and I'm paranoid about my fwoggies.) and he looks A LOT better. He's still not eating, but he's swimming around the container looking far more comfortable, he's ditched the lying-apathetically-on-bottom.

 

[WILDER]

How do you known its not bad water quality when you have never tested it.
Till you get your water tested and it ok, we can then look at why the fish are ill and stop blaming water quality.