At Wits End (Disease Diagnosis)

[reza83]

Here are the answered questions (See Below)

I have included a picture of my fish, it took me 50+ tries to get a good enough picture. Fish has a line I have noted in pic. Not sure what this is only defined on one side.

Picture Here: http://imgur.com/ZiJdZa5



1~What type of fish is afflicted?

----- Orange Platy

In addition, please describe what is wrong with the fish to the best of your ability (i.e. cotton like growth, bloated, etc.).

----- My Platy currently is flashing, jerks around on occasion and hides a large percentage of the time. The fish is eating a lot, is very active while eating, stays in sight while eating, will eat flakes from an eye dropper.

2~What are your tank parameters (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, temp, pH)? Please give exact values.

-----Ammonia - 0
-----Nitrites - Under 5 ppm
-----Nitrites - 0 to 0.25 ppm
-----Temp - 25c (78f)
-----PH - 8.0-8.2

3~ How large is the tank? How long has the tank been set up?

-----10 Gallon Quarantine Tank
-----Setup for 2 weeks
-----No substrate
-----Mechanical/Floss Filter
-----Daily Water Changes with SeaChem Prime

4~What type of filtration are you using? Please give the name and number (i.e. Fluval 304) and amount of gph if known.

-----Top Fin Power Filter 10 (80 GPH)
-----Floss with no activated Carbon
-----Petco Power Head King 160 (160 GPH)

5~How many fish are in the tank? What kinds of fish are they and what are their current sizes?

-----One Orange Platy approximately 1 1/2 year old

6~When is the last time you did a water change and vacuum the gravel? How often do you do this? How much water do you remove at a time?

Quarantine tank, no substrate to vacuum, 50%

7~How long have you had the fish? If the fish is new, how did you acclimate it/them?

-----Orange Platy was tank raised from birth no acclimation.

8~Have you added anything new to the tank--decor, new dechlorinator, new substrate, etc.?

-----Quarantine tank N/A

9~What kind of food have you been feeding your fish, have you changed their diet recently?


-----Aqueon Spirulina Enriched Flakes
-----API Tropical Greens
-----Tetra Freeze Dried Blood Worms

 

[Delapool]

Pretty stumped. Any more details on how it started? Is the flashing around the gills or down that line? Is the flashing and the red line connected?

Did the line / colour loss (?) start from anywhere and get worse?

I assume that water chemistry in your DT is fine and no problems with other fish?

 

[reza83]

Pretty stumped. Any more details on how it started? Is the flashing around the gills or down that line? Is the flashing and the red line connected?

Did the line / colour loss (?) start from anywhere and get worse?

I assume that water chemistry in your DT is fine and no problems with other fish?

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for responding!

-----The Fish Seems to Flash around the gills. I think it does flash more on the side with the red line. I have not seen it flash as much since being treated in the Quarantine tank.

-----It still twitches every now and then when it isn't hiding.

-----I'm afraid I am not sure if the red line started and grew or got worse. If anything I would say it became more defined but as for length I'm not sure.

-----I am on day 6/7 of Mardel Maracyn Plus Medication
(I decided to do 7 days instead of 5)

Main Tank History
The water chemistry in my main tank was poor 3-4 months back. My municipal water system has a high amount of chloramine
(tests were saying 0.25ppm) and (pH is 8.2) right out of the faucet and I was unaware.

The water changes I were doing coupled with Jungle Start Right just seemed to be putting more ammonia in the tank (rookie mistake) i read that Jungle Start Right removes the chlorine from chloramine but leaves the ammonia...I have since purchased Seachem Prime to detoxify the high chloramine count so that it doesn't turn into ammonia and the API water tests are coming out agreeable now.

I lost a Black Molly from Dropsy during this time she was around 2 -3 years old. I assume the poor water conditions slowly shut down her vital systems. I was able to save the orange platy she has been alive for a month now since then.

Both Main Tank and Quarantine tank now have Nitrites, Nitrates, Ammonia at a good level. As for the high pH (8.2) there is not much i can do for that. It comes out of my faucet that way and I don't like to use stabalizer every time i water change. The fish seem to adjusted to it anyway.


Hopefully I summarized the information well. Sorry about the paragraphs..

 

[Delapool]

Thanks for the info.

The eating is a good sign and possibly it was the water chemistry that has caused this with the flashing being just irritation rather than bacterial infection or parasites.

Is the flashing all the time or just around feeding time?

It doesn't look fungal, eating well suggests not too sick so that crosses of severe bacterial infection (hopefully).

 

[philipraposo198]

I don't think the line is part of your fish's illness. I feel like its due to the flashing.

I had a sick male ram that flashed and got some.nasty red markings due to aggressive flashing on driftwood.

I believe they are internal type of scraps / bleeding.



Sent from my SM-N900W8 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[reza83]

Thanks for the info.

The eating is a good sign and possibly it was the water chemistry that has caused this with the flashing being just irritation rather than bacterial infection or parasites.

Is the flashing all the time or just around feeding time?

It doesn't look fungal, eating well suggests not too sick so that crosses of severe bacterial infection (hopefully).

I haven't been seeing much flashing lately, it may be because there aren't many things in the tank. I will add more symptoms that I missed in the original post. Yesterday was the last day of the Mardel Maracyn Plus broad spectrum antibiotic.

 

[reza83]

I don't think the line is part of your fish's illness. I feel like its due to the flashing.

I had a sick male ram that flashed and got some.nasty red markings due to aggressive flashing on driftwood.

I believe they are internal type of scraps / bleeding.



Sent from my SM-N900W8 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

Thanks for the response!

It almost looks like that the red line is under the skin if that matters

 

[reza83]

Current state of my Orange Platy

1.) Fish still hides unless it's time for feeding.
2.) Fish is eating a lot, still eats flakes from eye dropper.
3.) Red Line is still present of left side of fish (see picture) it looks like it is underneath the skin.
4.) Gills seem white but I don't see any fungus (I referenced gill fungus through Google search)
5.) I don't know if this makes sense but the fish seems very scaly. It doesn't look like dropsy like i have seen with my black molly...but it does seem like the scales are well defined.
6.) the gills seem sunken in compared to the rest of the body see these images (album)

imgur: the simple image sharer

 

[Matt68005]

This is indeed a tough one.......have you tried an anti-parasite medicine? A red line, like in a human, would indicate septima, but you treated with the maracyn plus so that dosent make sense. Sometimes a fish will get "fright" from a bare bottom tank that is not painted, like they freak out and hide and run a lot. Not often but sometimes it does occur. Especially in goldfish. I couldn't see much in the pictures except maybe an old injury (probably from the flashing or fright as well)

 

[reza83]

This is indeed a tough one.......have you tried an anti-parasite medicine? A red line, like in a human, would indicate septima, but you treated with the maracyn plus so that dosent make sense. Sometimes a fish will get "fright" from a bare bottom tank that is not painted, like they freak out and hide and run a lot. Not often but sometimes it does occur. Especially in goldfish. I couldn't see much in the pictures except maybe an old injury (probably from the flashing or fright as well)

Thanks for your reponse!

I started a new treatment of medications after a couple days of no medicines.

I am now treating with Seachem Kanaplex and Hikari Metro+ which I read may help with Parasites and is okay to use with Kanaplex.

I will say the fish seems less twitchy and more active. The Red line noted is still there but it isn't really red much at all. I have not seen any flashing,I'm not sure if it was from the 7 day treatment of maracyn plus or if it is from the new medicines. Maybe i will buy some more substrate for the Qtank to take some of the fear out of the equation thanks for the suggestion.

Current Symptoms

1.) Fish is a little skittish and hides but is more active and visible after she gets used to seeing me.
2.) Fish looks like it is very scaley (think dropsy without the bloating pinecone shape.) Also gills seem concave as well as lower body. really hard to describe
3.) I have not witnessed fish flashing and it is not as twitchy
4.) Gills are still White-Ish no visible signs of fungus or parasites.
5.) Red line is still present but no longer red in color
5.) Fish is still eating well does not seem to be wasting away.

 

[Matt68005]

Even I would hesitate to keep medicating this one poor little platy. Sounds like your just dumping medicines in that tank with no regard to any actual idea what is wrong with it. I would advise against this in the future. Even I have no problem dosing with what medicine needs to be used for whatever purpose, but just guessing and dumping, is a bad idea.