Sick platy?

[Vegetarian fish nut]

Hi,
I have a platy in one of my tanks that keeps hiding in an ornament and laying there for hours. He has whitish areas on his head, not much just a little bit. He is eating, and swims around, but he clamps his fins most of the time. I tested my water yesterday, and my nitrates are really high. I have many tanks, and forgot to clean or change the filter. It was disgusting, do I changed it, and gravel vaccumed to clean up the loose crap from the filter. I have many tanks that have been in contact with my siphon. If my fish is sick, should I treat all my tanks?
Thanks,

 

[water12]

It sounds like you have ich. I had an outbreak with my tank a couple months ago, and my platys would act the same way, just hiding with fins down and not doing much. I raised my temp to 86 and added aquarium salt. The ich disappeared within 3-4 days but you want to keep you temp up for aleast a week afterwards to be sure to kill the ich completely. When raising the temp be sure to do it gradually otherwise your fish may go into shock. i hope this helps

 

[Mumma.of.two]

Hi,
I have a platy in one of my tanks that keeps hiding in an ornament and laying there for hours. He has whitish areas on his head, not much just a little bit. He is eating, and swims around, but he clamps his fins most of the time. I tested my water yesterday, and my nitrates are really high. I have many tanks, and forgot to clean or change the filter. It was disgusting, do I changed it, and gravel vaccumed to clean up the loose crap from the filter. I have many tanks that have been in contact with my siphon. If my fish is sick, should I treat all my tanks?
Thanks,

Hi!
Are the spots fuzzy or do they look like grains of salt?
What are the nitrates?
Changing the filter cartridge out completely might cause a cycle. Keep a close eye on ammonia and nitrite.
First thing you new to do is get the nitrates under 20ppm with water changes. Can you post a picture of the fish?

 

[Vegetarian fish nut]

Thanks for the advice, I read up on how to treat ich, I can't turn up the heat because my heaters are self regulating, and I can't add salt because I have cat fish. I went to the store and asked, they gave me a medication that shouldn't harm my catfish. I hope my fish don't all die. Also, how do you tell if a dalmation Molly has ich? I have other tanks, that I used the same siphon in, would that cause it to spread?

 

[Vegetarian fish nut]

My fish doesn't seem to be getting better. My nitrates are under control now, I added salt 2 tbsp per day for three days.(30 gal tank) I'm not planing to add more salt. I also took out my carbon and added a product called lifeguard. It says it's an all in one treatment that works on ich. ( recommended by the pet store) i've been using it for 4 days with no improvement. My heater is self regulating, so I can't increase the temperature. Any ideas on what I should do?

 

[GNarnian]

If you can't up the temperature, then all you can do is treat with medication and keep the tank really, really clean. So daily water changes and gravel cleaning is a must.

What are your Nitrates at now?

 

[Vegetarian fish nut]

I tested my water again, and the nitrates are up to 80ppm. If I do a water change, won't that get rid of the medication? What should I do?

 

[Vegetarian fish nut]

I couldn't tell before what the white looked like on his head, but now it looks fuzzy, not like salt.

 

[GNarnian]

Your Nitrates should be 20 or below. You should do another large water change to get the nitrates down. Was there an injury on the fish in that area before?

 

[Vegetarian fish nut]

I changed 10% of the water, I'm not sure how much I can take out since I've done a lot of water changes lately.

 

[Vegetarian fish nut]

My Betta has developed a dark spot off of his dark blue fin, and part of his fin is missing. My other platties ribs are showing,it hides a lot and isn't eating much. Another paltry seems fine, but eats like its never seen food. It is really small, I just got it last week, and in a week it got a huge belly. I was guilty of over feeding, I also missed replacing the filter and it was really really dirty. My nitrates are between 20-40ppm, my ph is abnormally low. It's usually 8.0 now it's 7. Over the past week I have done a 50% water change and gravel vac, then 20%, then 20% then a10%. I had to replace my filter, it's one of those whisper ones with carbon prepackaged into a wool thing. I also cleaned out my filter box, and the pipes because they were clogged. I have now added aquarium salt and melafix. Can I continue to gravel vac and water change while treating with melafix? Should I remove the sick fish and put them in my empty cycled ten gallon tank? Is the platy with a fat belly sick? What do I do with my Betta?

 

[GNarnian]

You can do multiple 50% water changes without hurting anything. The beneficial bacteria are mostly in the filter. So long as the water you are putting back in your tank is conditioned, it's fine.

 

[GNarnian]

Sorry somehow I missed that last post. You'll need to monitor your tank parameters closely since you just replaced the filter. Did you keep the old one to help seed the new one? If not, you lost a lot, if not most of your beneficial bacteria. The large belly could be due to over-feeding, so try to watch what you feed. I know how hard it is to want a small fish to get enough to eat and grow fast.

Also, is there still carbon in your filter? If there is you need to remove it. Carbon takes medications out of the water, so your melafix won't do anything with the new carbon in there.

 

[Vegetarian fish nut]

Hi,
I've been testing my water everyday, and it's fine, ph is a little lower than normal, actually in all my tanks. What do you mean by using the old filter to seed the new one? My filter is all in one package, carbon and all. I took the whole prepackaged filter cartridge out and put aquarium wool in instead.

 

[Vegetarian fish nut]

Can I do a water change while treating daily with
Melafix? My tank looks a little cloudy, and my nitrates are at 40ppm.