What killed my platy?

[appleblossom]

About a month ago my boyfriend posted this topic about our blue tuxedo platy.

As noone seemed to know what the problem could be we assumed it was a wound and that the white patches were just dead flesh, we put her in a quarantine tank for 2 weeks and the orange colouring disappeared leaving just the white areas. She was eating and swimming happily although the white patch never went away so we returned her to the community tank and kept an eye on her. Since then we have kept an eye on her and nothing has changed in her behaviour or appearance.

Unfortunately this morning we realised she was missing and found her dead behind a peice of bogwood. She has a hole in her side where the white patch was. As you can see from the photos its pretty horrible looking poor fish

The thing that has got us worried now is it looks like whatever was on her side has 'burst', so we dont know if the rest of the fish are at risk of getting whetever she had.

Does anyone know what it might be and if theres anything we can do to protect our other fish??

Bye bye Bonnie


Edit: also the white patch on the outside was much smaller than the hole that is there now, maybe only 1/8th the size...maybe it was something growing inside her like a parasite?? I'm out of ideas

 

[appleblossom]

anyone?

 

[tstenback]

Looks like it may have been a fungus initially that let to body rot after. Just a guess though.

 

[cometcattle]

Wish I could help. The only time Ive seen anything remotely like that was in "Alien".

 

[appleblossom]

I'm slightly concerned that noone seems to know what this is... I havnt been able to find anything that sounds remotely like it in the fish diseases bit

 

[Angry_Platy]

It looks like it may have been a cyst or something like that...as for your other fish, I would do a significant water change and add some medication to your water....I am not sure where you live ar what you have but here we have an all purpose antifungal, antibacterial etc. remedy. Also, if you have no scaleless fish or catfish you may want to add some aquarium salt to your water.

Also, you may want to turn the temperature up in your tank a bit...this will help kill any nasties in the water

 

[J_acon]

Never seen anything like it.

The first stage looked like a tumor, then like rot and the last bit is like as if the fish bursted from the inside.

Link

Check the link, it has pictures of diseases in fish. Try posting your picture to the person who wrote the article, maybe he will find out. Sorry about your fish

 

[appleblossom]

Thanks J_acon, I've sent her an email with the pictures, if I find out what it was i'll post it here...


anyone else got any possible answers??

 

[tstenback]

After looking through a few books i would say that it was an ulcer. They look like a whitish spot to start then it eats into the skin of the fish until the fish dies. HTH

 

[appleblossom]

Well I got a reply....

"It looks like your fish had a parasite, but it's hard to tell without seeing
the fish. Some parasites eat their way into the fish - nasty, but true. I am
sorry for your loss. You might want to treat your whole tank with a broad
spectrum medication for parasites, although a fungus or bacteria might also
be to blame. Your local fish shop should have something for you to treat
your tank with - and raised temps and salt is always a good place to start.

Good luck - and join us in the forum, we're a lively bunch!
jilly"


Thanks for your input aswell tsenback

Now the next question is can I add salt to a tank with a chinese butterfly loach and a yoyo loach? I dont want to kill them off!!

 

[appleblossom]

Aah thinking about it I guess they both count as scaleless fish so no salt allowed