Newbie With Sick Platy

[joeljkp]

Hi everyone.

I have a sick platy here with what I think is fin rot (the end of her tail is jagged with red splotches). We noticed it last night, when we saw her kind of laying on her side on the gravel at the bottom of our tank and having trouble swimming and doing things.

We went ahead and transferred her to a small 1-gallon "hospital" tank with some gravel and an air stone. I put some MelaFix in there along with 1tsp of salt. I checked the water properties and everything looks good. The temperature indicator says about 76-78 deg F (we don't have a tank heater).

My question is about feeding... it looks like she's having a lot of trouble swimming at all, much less up to the top of the tank. I have some livebearer flake food that I use that sits at the top for a few seconds, then starts to sink once it gets disturbed. I fed her last night and I didn't see her make it to the top before everything had sunk! It does have a few tubiflex worms in there that stay up at the top longer, but I haven't see her eat any of those either.

Does anyone have any advice? I'm afraid she's going to starve or something before her tail heals.

Thanks in advance.

 

[WILDER]

Can we take a look at your water stats please in ammonia,nitrite,nitrate, and ph.
Red edging to a tail is septicemia.
You will need a bacterial med not melafix you need an internal one.
Septicemia hard to cure once it has progressed.
She dosn't sound good if she struggling to swim, and laying on the bottom to oneside, all signs of a dying fish, sorry.