Platy Death

[BLACK DOG]

One of my Platys the female died last night but I would like to find what the reason was.
1 she has been swimming nose down for a few days.
2 she was very bloated.
3 her scales were standing out from her body and the dorsal fin was erect.

I'm just hoping that I have not got some form of bug in the tank.

 

[OldMan47]

The description that you give is one typical of "dropsy". Unfortunately that is a description of a group of symptoms, not a disease as such. The symptoms can be indicative of anything from poor water chemistry to a parasite infestation or even a bacterial infection. Unfortunately there are lots of folks that have had success dealing with a particular cause and are thus convinced that whatever worked for them is the ultimate cure for dropsy. It is much like saying that you have a cure for pneumonia because whatever you did for a particular case happened to work. Like dropsy, pneumonia is a description of symptoms. IF you had a case of pneumonia that resulted from a bacterial infection and treated it with antibiotics, the cure would be fairly quick. That simply does not mean that antibiotics will work in every case. Similarly, people that have gotten lucky with a dropsy treatment will tell you that a certain treatment is the ultimate cure. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Each case requires a much better diagnosis than simply observing the symptoms that are presented.