The Last Day

[PrairieSunflower]

Well... I know I keep thinking my oldest guppy (Gemini) is about to die and then she doesn't... and now I am REALLY sure she won't live more than a day.  Sort of sad... I've become rather tired of having livebearers as I've had so many problems with them (not so much with the ones I have now, just a lot of others)... but I will be sad to see her go, she is the best one (and mother to 3 of the other girls still in my tank).
 
I went to my facebook album to try and calculate her precise age and am a bit baffled with that album (I have many fish albums!)... as all the dates are 1 year ago (which is NOT when I got this fish as it was 2 years ago... which is 1 year before moving to our new place which we've been in for over a year now)... yet my fish I did get that long ago (in another photo album) are dated correctly....  So... some weird glitch there anyway.
 
So.... I am only guessing I've had her for 2 years and 7 or 8 months as I bought her in January 2 years ago... and she'd have to have been anywhere from 4-6 months old already!
 
Surprising really.... it means I will start to lose 4 of the other 5 guppies soon too as the second oldest was born a month after I bought Gemini then I bought 2 from the store about 4 months after that who matched the size of the first baby that I kept.... which means they are all 3 also over 2 years.
 
Wow!
 
That said... I'm also frustrated again and having platy problems.  It seems any platies I buy get struck down eventually with an unknown disease and waste away (tempted to say wasting disease).  I have 4 remaining juveniles and 1 seems to be getting it.  I have previously tried treating the 4 adults with exactly the same thing (with the board help) to no avail.  I am considering euthanizing that one in hopes that maybe it keeps the remaining 3 healthy... but not sure that is a good plan or would work.  There is a health difference between my platies though... or seems to be.  Two are born from one past female and 2 from another.  The oldest 2 are really robust... the smaller two have always been very fragile.  Will see I guess.

 

[Chad]

It is sad to lose a fish, especially an old one you've come to care about.
 
Platy problems, if you've ruled out everything else, could be genetic if they are related they could be passing it along.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

None of the adults I lost were related to each other... but the babies to them.  The last to be lost was the strongest adult and hers are the two babies that seem also very strong.

 

[Chad]

Could just be age...they don't live all that long, especially when breeding regularly.

 

[Elrohirthehasty]

If they are breeding well, it shouldn't matter if some are dying, you'll have lots eventually.  If that is the case, make sure you introduce some new genes now and then...

 

[fish48]

                    

•  

of course it matters if some fish are dying and as fish keepers we need to try and find out the reasons why they are dying .

 

[Chad]

Yes, absolutely. We have to identify any water quality issues, diseases, space or stocking issues, oxygen issues, contaminant issues etc.
 
Fish die for a reason, sometimes it's old age, but if it's not, it's part of good fishkeeping to find out why.

 

[MBOU]

I'm not sure if it helps either way...
 
But I see a *lot* of livebearers... more than most, really... and all identical to each other and related and over bred, mass produced... and over the last 5 years, I have seen a lot of differences in the quality of the livestock and its getting worse.
 
A problem I used to see occasionally was platies and guppies on import came in thin and slightly curved spine or slowly developed this in store or with customers. Even if water was fine (literally, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, ph, gh, kh etc were not a cause).
 
It was clearly either a disease or genetic but looking at images... these two match what platies ended up looking like...
 
http/www.wetwebmedia.com/CyprinidontiformFishPIX/Livebearers/Poeciliids/Platies%20PIX/Platy_Red_Spots_and_Clamped_Fins[1].JPG
 
More extreme...
 
http/www.wetwebmedia.com/CyprinidontiformFishPIX/Livebearers/Poeciliids/Platies%20PIX/platy%20bent%20spine.JPG

 

[Chad]

if you've ruled out everything else, could be genetic if they are related they could be passing it along.

I'll requote myself.

 

[5teady_2012]

THE PICTURES POSTED
 
This is a bacterial infection, better water quality is needed to avoid this. try not to over feed your fish too.
Could possibly be TB and if it is, unfortunately the other tank mates are at high risk and there is a possible chance they all start popping off one by one.

I may be wrong so don't fear the worse  yet, but if Wilder is still active on this forum, she is brilliant with diseases on fish
 
If it was me though, id be leaning towards TB

 

 

[PrairieSunflower]

I haven't seen Wilder in a long time.  She was awesome!  I think she disappeared around Christmas time.
 
My old guppy did die as predicted.
 
I don't think my platy problem is TB, it is exclusive to my platies only and TB would spread to my other fish.  Also, only one of my guppies has ever had babies, the other 4 guppies and my 4 platies have never had babies.  I decided to keep females exclusively because I found males (particularily guppies) so frustratingly fragile.
 
The symptoms for my platies have been.... they seem more sensitive, more likely to clamp at the slightest change (the ones that end up getting sick and that I cannot cure, which are 4 for far, and not close together in timing).  It starts like that for some time.... where I'll have one that starts clamping on and off (I have one starting that now).  Then that one will start to hide, then after that just get more and more thin despite eating.
 
In the past I have attempted to treat the fish with different methods, including frequent water changes with some salt, anti-internal bacteria meds, and general tonic (not at the same time obviously). None had any effect at all.

Just a side comment (and don't confuse it as a symptom with the above as it is separate).  I did buy a half starved guppy at the LFS quite some time ago (she is old now too) and as I bulked her up with feeding her spine developed more and more of a curve, but I have always been sure that was due to malnutrition (or maybe genetics but I think more likely malnutrition as it came on as she reached adulthood and she has never been ill).

 

[PrairieSunflower]

Right.... so now both of my blue coral platies are doing what my old platies did before they died.... hanging around (not at the top or bottom), just sitting in places like in plants and so on.
 
I'm so tired of platy problems, it is all I've had... this mysterious whatever it is that happens... sorting of like wasting disease maybe.  I am at a complete loss at what to do... seems like sooner or later all my platies get it... my other fish are unaffected... the guppies are just getting old but are not ill.

 

[fish48]

did you get platy's from same place ?

 

[PrairieSunflower]

I bought 3 from one place and 1 from another... all Maidenhead Aquatics and locations close to each other.... so very possibly they had the same suppliers.  The two platies that started off this entire problem came from the same location.  (I also started a new thread in emergency on this same topic thinking it might get noticed better there).
 
Another detail someone else thought up in that thread was maybe equipment was triggering the problem... like a heating with undetectable surges or whatnot.  So, I shall add the detail that the problems started when my platies were in my 10 gallon... after the two platies that caused the problem had both died the ich at the time cleared easily finally.  Once there was a period where all seemed healthy... I decided to move them into my 20 gallon.  In my 20 gallon I had guppies and 1 platy who never got along with the others and neons.  After a period the one platy that had never been with the others was next to get ill.  I euthanized her more quickly hoping to stop the disease... thought I had because I had a good long period of nothing until now.
 
I did lose a guppy over night, but not related to this platy issue.  I lost my guppy that was 1 1/2 years old with physical problems (she had a very curved spine which seemed to be from malnutrition early on, my guess as she's never been ill) and she had become a bit stiff with age.

 

[fish48]

I think you may have bought poor quality stock no one really knows what environment and conditions that the fish have gone through. The fish could reach its final destination the home aquarium within a week or two by this time the fish would have gone through 4 different environments, when it comes to making profit no one seems to care as long as the fish lives long enough to sale to the customer. I have bought platy’ from Maidenhead Aquatics and they are doing well, I know what I am looking for and am very fussy when it comes to buying fish from a lfs I bought some fish a few weeks ago I asked the woman if she can catch the fish that I wanted her reply was I am not going to stress out all the fish, my answer to her was if you know what you are doing you won't stress any fish out, anyway she Knew what she was doing  and no fish got stressed.
  
1)   Always spend as much time as possible studying the fish that you going to buy.
 
2)   Always ask questions about the fish. How long have the fish been in the shop Many lfs will sale the fish on the same day as they receive them a fish needs time to settle It’s best  to go back to buy the fish at a later date,
 
3)  Always pick the fish that you want and never let them pick the fish for you,