Sick Fish

[Lemming]

Hi, I’ve got a 230L (60 gallon) tank for nearly 4 weeks and just starting to have troubles. I have 6 platies, 1 featherfin catfish and 5 glowlight tetras (one Glowlight died this morning) and the one platy seemed to be moving sluggish in the water with its dorsal fin and body moving quickly but not getting very far and has now gotten to the stage where it just sits at the surface moving only it pectoral fins. It seems to have no movement in its other fins which are stuck down to its body and does not use them. It has gotten black dots on top of its head and doesn’t appear to be sucking for air, just sitting on the surface. There appears to be a white fuzz on the sides which you cant see directly square on but when looking at the platy from the front there is this fuzz. Some of the other platies are starting to move a bit sluggish and are moving around really fast as opposed to there usual slow movements about the tank. No disease that ive looked up on the net seems to fit these symptoms. My local pet store said it was high ammonia and I used some conditioning salts to bring these levels down but hasn’t done a thing plus shouldn’t that have been the trouble earlier on rather than at the end of the cycle? Could you help me at all with what is wrong

 

[dwarfgourami]

Did the lfs actually test for high ammonia? Have you checked the nitrites? If either was high, I would rely on water changes rather than conditioning salts (though salt can help reducing the impact of high nitrites). What is your water change routine?

 

[Lemming]

i got my water checked and the ammonia and nitrites were nil but the pH was 7.6. also one thing i forgot to mention was that my heater failed and wasnt on for 2 days making the temperature 19C. i do a 30% water change once a week as well as cleaning the gravel. any ideas on why my fish are still dying??

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hi, I’ve got a 230L (60 gallon) tank for nearly 4 weeks and just starting to have troubles. I have 6 platies, 1 featherfin catfish and 5 glowlight tetras (one Glowlight died this morning) and the one platy seemed to be moving sluggish in the water with its dorsal fin and body moving quickly but not getting very far and has now gotten to the stage where it just sits at the surface moving only it pectoral fins. It seems to have no movement in its other fins which are stuck down to its body and does not use them. It has gotten black dots on top of its head and doesn’t appear to be sucking for air, just sitting on the surface. There appears to be a white fuzz on the sides which you cant see directly square on but when looking at the platy from the front there is this fuzz.

As to the fuzz on your fish, check out the description of columnaris on this page;

http/freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/columnaris.htm

And descriptions of body fungus and other deseases on this page;

http/www.fishpalace.org/Disease.html

Look anything like it? Columnaris is much more common in the fish keeping hobby than fungus in general- to treat this you will need an anti bacterial & fungal med like Pimafix.