Platy Acting Strange

[jamorel]

Hello, my male platy has been acting strange for about six months. It began with what seemed to be fits at the top of the tank where he would swim rapidly then seisure - literally seize up with tail point upward, nose upward...bent and awkward. After a few minutes, he would snap out of it. After a few days I found that he was swimming at the surface and seemed oblivious to the other fish. I moved him to a ten gallon hospital tank for two months, and he has now graduated to a 1.5 gallon that he lives in with a baby (his granddaughter actually).
He used to be shy but now he is bold...acts like he is blind at times, but responds to hand movement. Eats like a horse but spends most of his days at the surface. Sometimes clenches his tail but no other evidence of discomfort. I am wondering if he possibly had a stroke. I have treated him with another molly in the bigger tank with a variety of treatments, but moved him out as I dont believe it has effected him and really is more harm than good. thoughts?

 

[BerryAttack]

how are your water stats? normal? check that. very strange to hear a fish have that going on, but i think it might have something to do with the water quality. my one tetra would do that.. but he had a curved spin and i didn't want to flush him.. lived for about a year after i bought him and boom died one day out of no where, did the same as what you fish is doing.

best bet its the water quality.

 

[jamorel]

how are your water stats? normal? check that. very strange to hear a fish have that going on, but i think it might have something to do with the water quality. my one tetra would do that.. but he had a curved spin and i didn't want to flush him.. lived for about a year after i bought him and boom died one day out of no where, did the same as what you fish is doing.

best bet its the water quality.

I know the water quality is always an issue but I dont think this time - I am very on top of water testing and weekly changes. Mind you have not tested the 1.5g but I do a 30% change twice a week. I have a 36g a 26g and a 10g hospital and a 1.5g that he is now in - he started these symptoms while in 26g (no other sick fish then or since) and has not changed when I moved him to the 10g (took him out after about two months as needed it for a Molly who has something else and do not want to treat him for that unnecessarily. He has been this small tank for about a month and a half and no real change in his behaviour from either tank...and we are going on several months now.
Bottom line is that he has moved to three different tanks with healthy still living fish over the past five months and his symptoms have not changed.

He seems happy, eats well, gets very excited at meal times but has these weird episodes once in a while (probably once or twice daily - he now lives by my computer so I can keep an eye on him).
I still lean toward internal parasite but the LFS people have not been much help. I have so many meds and researched fish daily only to decide that meds are hit and miss at best. Hoping someone can give me a clue what to do.

Changing water now...see if that helps but yeah...this fella has me stumped
PS. no curved spin...just flips out...literally...then gets still at the top for about two minutes...then almost normal.

36 gallon with 4 zebra loaches, 1 platy, 1 molly, 5 serpae tetra, 6 cardinals and 1 neon - set up for 1 year
26 g with four mollys, two platy and two zebra loaches - three serpae tetra - set up for 1.3 years
10 g with one molly - set up for 10 months
1.5 with baby platy and one small male platy - set up for four months

 

[BerryAttack]

it could be a virus, but there is no treatment for that and usually clears up on its own. it could also be a bacterial infection. try treating him with Melafix and see if that does anything. If he has not lost any colour, no fin lose and is eating, and looks healthy with no spots or anything then it is very hard to pin point what it is.
you can also try uploading a video of the fish, maybe someone will be able to pin point it because there is a visual.

 

[jamorel]

it could be a virus, but there is no treatment for that and usually clears up on its own. it could also be a bacterial infection. try treating him with Melafix and see if that does anything. If he has not lost any colour, no fin lose and is eating, and looks healthy with no spots or anything then it is very hard to pin point what it is.
you can also try uploading a video of the fish, maybe someone will be able to pin point it because there is a visual.

Thank you...I was treating him with a Molly...she will be my next question but one fish at a time - and they were treated together in the ten g with
Melafix, pimafix, salt solution, tetracycline, general cure & kanaplex as she was first thought to have bacterial and no one could figure the platy out, so he went along for the ride.

with the meds - Dont worry, not at the same time. This has been over a long course of time and treatments with many water changes and carbon to clear.
I only moved the platy out of the shared treatment tank when I started treating the molly with fungus cure and I knew would only make things harder for him, and definitely not going to help him.

He does lose color when he has an attack but it comes back when he recovers...so a few minutes later and he is normal. Other than his tail tipping up with his body remaining normal, there is no real external sign. I did try to put him back in the 26g but he became very afraid, curling at the bottom corner of the tank, so I took him out again. Once in the smaller tank where he knew his boundaries, he was fine.

photos and video attached. I forgot, he also lived in a baby "cage" in the 36 g tank for a few weeks, so in fact, he has lived in every tank in the house, no difference in his behaviour.
I have added videos to youtube and linked below...hopefully it works. The first are still images shortly after an "attack" - taken a couple of months ago while in the 36gallon tank (in a baby cage)
The second is video shot today (September) for an idea of how he is swimming and behaving.

I will upload more...incredibly slow but I did get one where he was having a "mini fit" - will add when it finally loads up.

Thank you Berry Attack. I really appreciate any help or feedback.

 

[BerryAttack]

i looked at the videos and he looks like he has a curved spin. where the body meets the fin you can tell that it curved upward. its a defect that fish can get over time, maybe when they are young they don't show it until later on in time and others show it right at birth and those are killed right away to prevent pain later on in the adult hood. he could have those fits do to the spin being curved. there is no fix for this.

one of my tetras had a curved spin but it curved downwards. i left him in the tank because he was still healthy, alive, would eat, play and act normally. i did not see this until a month later after purchase. he lived for about a year and died. i did not have the heart to kill him..

that is what i believe your fish has, a curved spin. they have fits when they are over exerted, but will bounce back after some rest. he should be fine in the tank that he is.

 

[jamorel]

i looked at the videos and he looks like he has a curved spin. where the body meets the fin you can tell that it curved upward. its a defect that fish can get over time, maybe when they are young they don't show it until later on in time and others show it right at birth and those are killed right away to prevent pain later on in the adult hood. he could have those fits do to the spin being curved. there is no fix for this.

one of my tetras had a curved spin but it curved downwards. i left him in the tank because he was still healthy, alive, would eat, play and act normally. i did not see this until a month later after purchase. he lived for about a year and died. i did not have the heart to kill him..

that is what i believe your fish has, a curved spin. they have fits when they are over exerted, but will bounce back after some rest. he should be fine in the tank that he is.

Interesting...so the curved spine isn't continual, only sporatic? His spine is quite normal most of the time...although I have noticed that sometimes there is a bit of a curve looking from the top down on him. Not always, but enough that I have had the "oh no, TB" reaction. Then he is normal again. ugh.
The videos I tried to load but will have to try again when the server is less busy, shows him having a bit of a fit. He can be quite normal until he has his fits...with the exception that he likes the surface and he doesn't like too much space. He also doesnt respond with fear - ie. I sometimes feed him with a spoon and found early on that he did not respond to the presence of the spoon...I can literally tap him but he doesnt react. He only reacts when he smells the food on the spoon, then he jumps forward and back, trying to get a bite but acting as though he is blindly looking.

I dont have the heart to put him down either unless he is in severe pain. I will load more videos when I can to make sure it looks the same as what you experienced with your beta.

 

[jamorel]

i looked at the videos and he looks like he has a curved spin. where the body meets the fin you can tell that it curved upward. its a defect that fish can get over time, maybe when they are young they don't show it until later on in time and others show it right at birth and those are killed right away to prevent pain later on in the adult hood. he could have those fits do to the spin being curved. there is no fix for this.

one of my tetras had a curved spin but it curved downwards. i left him in the tank because he was still healthy, alive, would eat, play and act normally. i did not see this until a month later after purchase. he lived for about a year and died. i did not have the heart to kill him..

that is what i believe your fish has, a curved spin. they have fits when they are over exerted, but will bounce back after some rest. he should be fine in the tank that he is.

Interesting...so the curved spine isn't continual, only sporatic? His spine is quite normal most of the time...although I have noticed that sometimes there is a bit of a curve looking from the top down on him. Not always, but enough that I have had the "oh no, TB" reaction. Then he is normal again. ugh.
The videos I tried to load but will have to try again when the server is less busy, shows him having a bit of a fit. He can be quite normal until he has his fits...with the exception that he likes the surface and he doesn't like too much space. He also doesnt respond with fear - ie. I sometimes feed him with a spoon and found early on that he did not respond to the presence of the spoon...I can literally tap him but he doesnt react. He only reacts when he smells the food on the spoon, then he jumps forward and back, trying to get a bite but blindly bumping the spoon.

I dont have the heart to put him down either unless he is in severe pain. I will load more videos when I can to make sure it looks the same as what you experienced with your beta.

this video is much longer - shows normalish swimming, then flipping out a bit and at the very very end, he starts with the tail curve at the surface.

Thanks again for looking at this. poor little buddy.

 

[jamorel]

i looked at the videos and he looks like he has a curved spin. where the body meets the fin you can tell that it curved upward. its a defect that fish can get over time, maybe when they are young they don't show it until later on in time and others show it right at birth and those are killed right away to prevent pain later on in the adult hood. he could have those fits do to the spin being curved. there is no fix for this.

one of my tetras had a curved spin but it curved downwards. i left him in the tank because he was still healthy, alive, would eat, play and act normally. i did not see this until a month later after purchase. he lived for about a year and died. i did not have the heart to kill him..

that is what i believe your fish has, a curved spin. they have fits when they are over exerted, but will bounce back after some rest. he should be fine in the tank that he is.

Interesting...so the curved spine isn't continual, only sporatic? His spine is quite normal most of the time...although I have noticed that sometimes there is a bit of a curve looking from the top down on him. Not always, but enough that I have had the "oh no, TB" reaction. Then he is normal again. ugh.
The videos I tried to load but will have to try again when the server is less busy, shows him having a bit of a fit. He can be quite normal until he has his fits...with the exception that he likes the surface and he doesn't like too much space. He also doesnt respond with fear - ie. I sometimes feed him with a spoon and found early on that he did not respond to the presence of the spoon...I can literally tap him but he doesnt react. He only reacts when he smells the food on the spoon, then he jumps forward and back, trying to get a bite but blindly bumping the spoon.

I dont have the heart to put him down either unless he is in severe pain. I will load more videos when I can to make sure it looks the same as what you experienced with your beta.

this video is much longer - shows normalish swimming, then flipping out a bit and at the very very end, he starts with the tail curve at the surface.

Thanks again for looking at this. poor little buddy.

Any chance it could be internal parasites, and if so, why is it so hard to find "wormers" at LFS?

 

[BerryAttack]

yea from the video i would still bet my money on the curved spin.. but where the tail is.. it looks like it's bruised. dark in colour. or that can just be his natural colour pattern.
if you can tell that the spin is not straight when looking from the top of the water. then that's what i would think the reason is.

for the internal parasite .. they can cause those reactions (fits), you can try treating him for that if you wish and see if that does anything.
but curved spin is were i'm going to guess whats wrong with the fish. and don't worry it wont spread to your other fish. the curving of the spin will stay with him.