Sick Platy?

[yhbae]

This 25g tank has been up and running for almost 3 months. There are in total 16 fishes, including 2 female platies.

I noticed about 30mins ago that one of the female was swimming rather slugishily, shaking the body sideways rather slowly. All fins are moving pretty slow as well.

She looks like this:

Magnified view:

Notice that she has some white stuff on her side body - is this the "ick" that everyone has been talking about? Seems odd since all other fishes seem fine and I haven't lost any fish for over 2 months. Water parameters seem fine at pH 7.2, 0 ammonia and nitrite. (nitrate is at 5ppm) Temp is 77F. This female does get picked on by the lone male alot more frequently than the other female - could that have caused stress?

If this is ick, I guess I should take it out and treat it in a separate tank?

Appreciate some help!

 

[zoe55123]

i don't think it's ick. i do think that if the male is picking on her more that you should remove her and see if she get's better. it could also be another sickness thou. can't think of the name off hand. i hope she get's better.

 

[platylover]

I don't have much experience with fish illness, but I think that I would separate her from the rest of the tank to see if she is just getting stressed by the male. If she does get better, I would try to get another female that looks like her to try to confuse the male and relieve some of the stress on the female you already have. Platies should be kept in groups of three, meaning that there are 2 females to every male. HTH

 

[yhbae]

I do have another 10g tank with currently only 4 platy fries (not her young). I could move her there temporarily. Then as playlover says, I need to buy another female so that the other female doesn't get stressed over. Can I buy a completely different kind, so do I must replace it with near identical female?

Hmmm... So if this is not ick, I have no clue how to cure her - I hope she heels by herself in the smaller tank...

 

[angelstiger]

I do have another 10g tank with currently only 4 platy fries (not her young). I could move her there temporarily.

If she is sick, you could infect your fry. The white spots look like fungus to me. Although it is rather hard to tell from the picture. Does it look fuzzy? or is it a flesh wound? Are there also small white spots on her tail?

 

[yhbae]

I looked at it again carefully, and now I don't see any spots in the tail anymore. Also the white stuff on her body no longer looks as fuzzy as it did earlier today. I could even say it could be a flesh wound. Could she have hurt herself when she tries to avoid the male? This one darts around very quickly when the male approaches.

 

[zoe55123]

do you have anything in the tank that could hurt her?
rocks, wood, decoration, etc.....

 

[yhbae]

I've witnessed this morning again - the male is real aggressive with this one. I dunno why, since he seems to leave the other female alone... I saw him almost ram into her - I guess this is how she got hurt (or hit some objects when she was trying to get away). I do have some stones that are smooth, but I also have a large piece of driftwood in the tank - I don't think they are sharp (my finger won't hurt by pressing against any of the exposed edges), but she may have caught something while swimming fast to get away from the male...

She is now in a separate 5.5g tank (which I purchased today) with some chemicals to get rid of the fungus. Hopefully she will be ok there...

So if I continue to separate her to another tank I will need to provide more female(s) to the original tank. Can I add different species of platy? Will the male still divide the attention across all females? I've seen some interesting colored ones that features bluish colors and some with yellow colors...

Thank you!

 

[loach]

She is now in a separate 5.5g tank (which I purchased today) with some chemicals to get rid of the fungus. Hopefully she will be ok there...

Did you try also adding salt (rock or aquarium salt only) to the water? In my experience (at least with mouth fungus) salt has brought Platies back when meds didn't help.

I think mouth fungus is different to body fungus, so I'd stick with the meds too, but salt can't hurt since live bearers do better with salt anyway.

 

[yhbae]

I have to admit I didn't add any salt (I forgot about it). So far, she seems to be doing fine, acting normally. She is feeding ok as well although she looks a little thin. Given that she normally gives birth about a week after the other female, she should be pretty fat right now - I guess she aborted the pregnancy...

I'll add some salt tonight. I do have the aquarium kind that I use for hatching brine shrimps...

Do female platies live ok by themselves? (well, she will have tankmates, just not other mature platies).

 

[platylover]

I think that she would be ok by herself. I would be carefull about what kind of female platy you buy. My male platy is a red mickey mouse platy and he seems to prefer my neon orange mickey mouse platy over my blue mickey mouse and 3 sunset wag platies. He will chase the sunsets all over the tank, just like you say is happening with yours, and he totally ignores the blue mickey mouse. I suggested the same type of platy that he perfers so that you don't end up with another platy female that gets totally stressed when your male comes around.

Another thing that you can do when your female is healthy is to remove the male right before you reintroduce your female to your tank and rearrange your decorations in the tank. By doing this, the male will think that he is in a different enviroment and may calm down a little bit towards your sick platy.

HTH.