Suspicious Sunburst Wag Platy Behavior

[TheDirector]

Hey everyone, I'm new here but I will do my best to follow the directions.

1. The fish is a Sunburst Wag Platy - I have a video link here that can show you how it is behaving. Click Here

2. I would love to give exact numbers but I don't have them, I took some tank water to petsmart and they 'checked' it with a color stick. They told me that the water was neutral on the low side. Everything else was in 'good shape'. The girl commented on how good the water was (whatever that means). Temp is 76 deg.

3. 55g aquarium has been setup for a month now (ish).

4. I'm sorry I don't know the answer to this question. The tank is in our office and was setup prior to me seeing it. I was told to stock the tank so I have placed a water conditioner and a stress coat (or something like that) to it initially. Since then I have added some live plants from PetSmart, 6 Sunburst Wag Platy's, 5 Bloodfin Tetras, a Poweder Blue Guarami, and another Dwarf Gaurami. They were spaced days appart, each new purchase was.

5. 13 fish See above and the video

6. I haven't done any of these as the tank is newish.

7. The fish was in the first batch of 6 platys I added to the tank. I aclimated them by floating the bag in the tank and adding some of the tank water to the tank every 15 minutes until I had done that like 4 times.

8. haven't added anything new. A time release food pyramid was added over the weekend and when we came back on monday the 1 platy was acting the way it is now.

9. We have been feeding them the tetra flakes, except for this past weekend when we gave them the time release food pyramid thing.

As i stated in #1, there is a video where you can see the fish's behavior. Please ask any additional questions you need to and I will answer quickly. Thank you for your time and help

BTW - the the fish in question is the one hanging out at the top of the tank. Thats all it does . . . just float around up there. If it does swim its quick and erratic, then it goes back up to the top.

Justin

 

[BrownCoat]

Well, you've done everything right so far! Good job!!

I've seen this behavior before and it generally occurs due to some sort of stress. Basically it could be a symptom of a great number of problems w/ the fish. The good thing is the other platies look perfect, so no "tank wide" problem.

May I ask how long ago the sick platies was added to the tank? If it was fairly recent it could be coming down w/ something it caught in the pet store.

You said you put a weekend feeder in there over. . . well the weekend. Was it one of those white pyramid ones? I've used those and I'm no convinced all the fish eat them. The sick platies could've been bullied by the other fish for food to the point of exhaustion and subsequently disease.

At this point I suggest waiting to see if it recovers on it's own or gets worse. It's too early to tell much, but it's good that your observant.

One thing to keep in mind is that live bearers die often and it's not always your fault. The most important thing is to protect the tank as a whole. In other words, if this fish becomes very sick you may need to euthanize it for the good of the tank.

I have 4 tanks (two 55gs, one 20g long, and one 29g) full of live bearers that I've been keeping for 3 years. I've been keeping aquariums for at least 10 years (possibly more).

Good luck!!

 

[TheDirector]

The sick platy was added with the other platys a couple of weeks ago - they were the first fish to be added to the tank.

It was indeed one of those white pyramid things.

I would have already removed the sick platy for the good of the tank but I'm curious what could be wrong with it. If I remove it and then don't know what was wrong with it, I won't know how to treat the others if they have the same problem.

That video was made yesterday, today the platy is a little more wabbly but comes off the surface a little more. There 'might' be just the faintest hint of white above the mouth of the platy. You probably can't tell in the video but when looking down the side of the sick platy you can sort of see a faint whiteness that is not visible when looking at it from the side. I could be just imagining it. I'll continue watching it closely for any changes.

 

[BrownCoat]

It doesn't sound like a 'stress' related problem.

Waiting a little while is probably the best thing to do. I thought I saw a white 'cloudyness' on the fish's side, but I wasn't sure if it was just the video. If there is a uniform white film on the body of the fish you could have 'velvet' on your hands (I think velvet is a type of fungus). I've never had velvet myself so i don't know much about it. Lucky me.

White on or around the mouth of the fish could be some other fungus infecting an injury.

Sometimes infections will just come and go especially if it's an infection of an injury (which may heal up).

Personally, I would be reluctant to use medications unless the whole tank has some sickness. Meds are expensive and I'm not sure the majority of them work. Not that you were planing on doing that immediately or anything!

I've had a fish that would routinely come down with ich, recover, and then get ich again. All the while the other fish in the tank would be perfectly healthy. I tried taking preventive measures (such as the heat treatment) and the da** fish would get it anyway. All I managed to accomplish was to stress out the rest of the fish!

If you have/can set up a "quarantine tank" to put the little dude in that would be great. That way you could watch for developments while reducing the possibility of contagion for the other fish. Once again expenses are the problem (not to mention time) if you don't have one on hand (and who does?).

I'm not sure what else to suggest, other than the fish might just get better all on its own! If not, it may just have a weaker immune system than the other fish.

 

[pocket22]

Mine did the same, then died.