Hello everyone. A total beginner here.
My platy is really lethargic and not eating. Let me give some background to this problem.
Early days:
I bought a new aquarium in March and added 5 guppies and 3 algae eating fish and 2 bottom dwellers. I have a 120 litre (31.7 US gallon) aquarium and for some time my fish were quite happy and we had some babies from guppies. Next month I added 5 platys and 2 ram cichlids. This is when problems started.
First round of problems:
Some time after the 2 cichlids arrived (I didn't quarantine them as I didn't even know this is a thing you should do) I noticed one ram cichlid started to be more lethargic and not eat. After some time it even lost its nice orange colour and become almost white. Unfortunately it died after some time and it took me 5 more dead fish (some of them died really weirdly with curved spine) and 2 wrong medicines to figure out that all my fishes had Camallanus parasite... Before getting them Nematol medicine, I gave them general tonic and Flagellol. Nevertheless, after 3 dosages of nematol in short time (because they had a severe parasite infection) it seemed that the parasite is gone and remaining fish started to act normally. We even had some more babies from platys and guppies!
Second round of problems:
But we were happy too fast. It looked like one platy started to develop dropsy... and then died a week later. We have added general tonic again to see if there is improvement (there wasn't). I have even bathed it in Epsom salt as I thought it has some constipation problem.
Current state:
Now, guppies act relatively normal, but one of platys is really lethargic and kind of fails to eat - it looks like it misses food pieces and is disinterested. Today it stopped eating... It is either on the ground or on the surface just staying in one place.
What could this be?!
Some notes:
We had several 80% water changes since they got sick, and all water parameters are fine (tested multiple times for everything). We also add water conditioner every time we change water. Temperature is within the range but it varies a few degrees from time to time. We turned the heater off for some time as it is quite hot already. Also, their poop of some fish (especially for remaining ram cichlid) looks white and stringy. Ram cichlid is also a bit lethargic, but it eats normally. Could it be that they still have the parasite after three dosages of nematol??? Is it too much medication? Stress? Some other parasite? The only platys left are one female and one male and I didn't want to get new fish until all existing fish get well, but this illness now lasts way too long. I feed them flakes, dried daphnia, they all loooove tablets that are for bottom dwellers and green beans.
I have attached images of the platy when it is on the ground and on the top.
Thanks in advance!
My platy is really lethargic and not eating. Let me give some background to this problem.
Early days:
I bought a new aquarium in March and added 5 guppies and 3 algae eating fish and 2 bottom dwellers. I have a 120 litre (31.7 US gallon) aquarium and for some time my fish were quite happy and we had some babies from guppies. Next month I added 5 platys and 2 ram cichlids. This is when problems started.
First round of problems:
Some time after the 2 cichlids arrived (I didn't quarantine them as I didn't even know this is a thing you should do) I noticed one ram cichlid started to be more lethargic and not eat. After some time it even lost its nice orange colour and become almost white. Unfortunately it died after some time and it took me 5 more dead fish (some of them died really weirdly with curved spine) and 2 wrong medicines to figure out that all my fishes had Camallanus parasite... Before getting them Nematol medicine, I gave them general tonic and Flagellol. Nevertheless, after 3 dosages of nematol in short time (because they had a severe parasite infection) it seemed that the parasite is gone and remaining fish started to act normally. We even had some more babies from platys and guppies!
Second round of problems:
But we were happy too fast. It looked like one platy started to develop dropsy... and then died a week later. We have added general tonic again to see if there is improvement (there wasn't). I have even bathed it in Epsom salt as I thought it has some constipation problem.
Current state:
Now, guppies act relatively normal, but one of platys is really lethargic and kind of fails to eat - it looks like it misses food pieces and is disinterested. Today it stopped eating... It is either on the ground or on the surface just staying in one place.
What could this be?!
Some notes:
We had several 80% water changes since they got sick, and all water parameters are fine (tested multiple times for everything). We also add water conditioner every time we change water. Temperature is within the range but it varies a few degrees from time to time. We turned the heater off for some time as it is quite hot already. Also, their poop of some fish (especially for remaining ram cichlid) looks white and stringy. Ram cichlid is also a bit lethargic, but it eats normally. Could it be that they still have the parasite after three dosages of nematol??? Is it too much medication? Stress? Some other parasite? The only platys left are one female and one male and I didn't want to get new fish until all existing fish get well, but this illness now lasts way too long. I feed them flakes, dried daphnia, they all loooove tablets that are for bottom dwellers and green beans.
I have attached images of the platy when it is on the ground and on the top.
Thanks in advance!
