Platy Sitting At The Bottom Of Tank?

[chickennuggets123]

My mickey mouse platy has been acting strange all of a sudden.
Everything seems fine with him, just he sits there... no other fish seem to be affected, they're all their happy normal selves. its just him... well, her.

Fish Symptoms:
Sits at the bottom of the tank
Sits under/in decorations
Normal colour, no spots or fin rot, same size, shape (though tail does bend down a little slightly)
Occasionally comes to surface to eat

Volume and Frequency of water changes:
25% once a week.


Tank inhabitants:
(Says on my signature)

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration):
Shrimp added recently
(i didnt put the pet shop water into my aquarium)
New decoration added today (but this was after he suddenly turned ill)


Additional info:
We had a recent outbreak of white spot (ich), last week, and he didnt seem to 'catch' it... he looked completely fine. There's been no signs of it, so i stopped the medication. (2 days after it looked like it stopped, i carried on with meds to be sure.)
No test kit at them moment, cant get one yet.
No photo sorry.
Ive had the fish about 1 month, and the tank about 3.




Thanks x

 

[RobberyinCSharp]

I had that happen once, but only after a dramatic series of home changes due to s hurricane. Is your fish female or male? If it's a female, It may be possible she is ready to give birth?

I've noticed platies do sometimes stress easily. Assuming another fish isn't picking on her, I'd say check your water parameters. Between the temperature change and the chemical change in the tank, the pH or ammonia readings might be bad. Especially after ending an ich treatment regimen.

In the mean time, API Stress Coat + is great as is Seachem Prime, in case your h2o parameters aren't right

 

[chickennuggets123]

I had that happen once, but only after a dramatic series of home changes due to s hurricane. Is your fish female or male? If it's a female, It may be possible she is ready to give birth?

I've noticed platies do sometimes stress easily. Assuming another fish isn't picking on her, I'd say check your water parameters. Between the temperature change and the chemical change in the tank, the pH or ammonia readings might be bad. Especially after ending an ich treatment regimen.

In the mean time, API Stress Coat + is great as is Seachem Prime, in case your h2o parameters aren't right

She's female- and NOT pregnant.
The female guppy seems to pick on her a bit.

 

[the_lock_man]

It could be a few things

One explanation certainly would be impending motherhood, but it would be obvious she was pregnant, as she'd be so fat.

Another would be ammonia poisoning, how did you cycle the filter?

Are you running a carbon filter to get rid of the whitespot treatment? It's possible, I guess, that it's a reaction to the treatment. Many fish illness treatments are poisonous to fish in the long term, and since it was only last week, it could possibly be a cause, if you haven't run a carbon filter.

 

[chickennuggets123]

It could be a few things

One explanation certainly would be impending motherhood, but it would be obvious she was pregnant, as she'd be so fat.

Another would be ammonia poisoning, how did you cycle the filter?

Are you running a carbon filter to get rid of the whitespot treatment? It's possible, I guess, that it's a reaction to the treatment. Many fish illness treatments are poisonous to fish in the long term, and since it was only last week, it could possibly be a cause, if you haven't run a carbon filter.

1. no shes been her normal size since i got her, and still is

2. I did the fish in cycle, as the people in the pet shop told me to do this.... (ive only just started with tropical - a few months) I know now to do the fishless cycle. They probably only wanted to make money from selling the fish and stuff. Its been up and running (with fish in) for about 2-3 months.

3.Ive been using white spot medication.

 

[colleen0309]

Do you have a test kit? If you do, check the ammonia and nitrite and give us the numbers. It would help us alot.

 

[the_lock_man]

Agree with Colleen, ammonia and nitrite levels will help. Even if the filter is now cycled, it could easily be delayed symptoms (ammonia poisoning is much like smoking in humans - the effects can take some while to show).

Have you removed the remnants of the whitespot treatment with a carbon cartridge in your filter?

 

[chickennuggets123]

We found fry swimming around before....
we dont know if it was off her- but there was no signs of pregnancy.

 

[the_lock_man]

We found fry swimming around before....
we dont know if it was off her- but there was no signs of pregnancy.

If she has always been the same size around her belly, then she's not been in contact with a male in the last six months. Basically, livebearers are sex-mad, and females can store sperm for around 6 months after their last "encounter". Your fry could have been from any of the female livebearers.

Did you get those ammonia and nitrite levels?

 

[chickennuggets123]

We found fry swimming around before....
we dont know if it was off her- but there was no signs of pregnancy.

If she has always been the same size around her belly, then she's not been in contact with a male in the last six months. Basically, livebearers are sex-mad, and females can store sperm for around 6 months after their last "encounter". Your fry could have been from any of the female livebearers.

Did you get those ammonia and nitrite levels?

no.
but i only got her 3 weeks ago, so...

 

[the_lock_man]

We found fry swimming around before....
we dont know if it was off her- but there was no signs of pregnancy.

If she has always been the same size around her belly, then she's not been in contact with a male in the last six months. Basically, livebearers are sex-mad, and females can store sperm for around 6 months after their last "encounter". Your fry could have been from any of the female livebearers.

Did you get those ammonia and nitrite levels?

no.
but i only got her 3 weeks ago, so...

OK, if you only bought her 3 weeks ago, it is not going to be delayed symptoms of ammonia poisoning.

If she isn't pregnant, and you say she hasn't changed shape at all in the 3 weeks you've had her so it would appear that she isn't, then that only really leaves the other two options.

(1) An adverse reaction to the whitespot treatment
(2) Ammonia and/or nitrite currently present in the tank.

Of those, I would say (2) is the more likely, so if you could test the water, it would help to narrow down the cause of the behaviour, and the course of action to treat it.

 

[chickennuggets123]

We found fry swimming around before....
we dont know if it was off her- but there was no signs of pregnancy.

If she has always been the same size around her belly, then she's not been in contact with a male in the last six months. Basically, livebearers are sex-mad, and females can store sperm for around 6 months after their last "encounter". Your fry could have been from any of the female livebearers.

Did you get those ammonia and nitrite levels?

no.
but i only got her 3 weeks ago, so...

OK, if you only bought her 3 weeks ago, it is not going to be delayed symptoms of ammonia poisoning.

If she isn't pregnant, and you say she hasn't changed shape at all in the 3 weeks you've had her so it would appear that she isn't, then that only really leaves the other two options.

(1) An adverse reaction to the whitespot treatment
(2) Ammonia and/or nitrite currently present in the tank.

Of those, I would say (2) is the more likely, so if you could test the water, it would help to narrow down the cause of the behaviour, and the course of action to treat it.

i'll have to get a kit some time soon.

 

[the_lock_man]

Can't suggest much else until you have, tbh.

In the meantime, try a large water change and see if that if improves things. If it does, then it backs up my theory of ammonia, so you would need to keep changing the water regularly (daily) to keep levels down, until you can get a test kit to see exactly what's going on.

You could also try taking a sample to an LFS for them to test, but get them to write down the actual level in Parts Per Million. "Fine", "High", "Low" as descriptions don't tell us anything.