Male platy - ill? injured? aging?

[Capt. Neckbeard]

I've been keeping platies for over a year now, I've yet to have any of them get any illnesses but over the last few days I've noticed one particular fish (named Longboy for apparent reasons) seemingly start to... 'deform', I suppose.

Below is a picture of him as he used to be. We named him Longboy due to how he looked like he had been stretched out.

Below is how he looks now.

To clarify: his head looks lumpier, and his body has a noticeable curve that wasn't there before, his rear half and tail all seem to be drooping a lot more than they ever did in the past. He always looked kinda stretched out but he never had any real issues, as the first image shows he was mostly just a perfectly happy and healthy male platy.

He still swims around quite normally and seems to be eating okay, but I'm getting worried about how he looks. The lumpiness of his head, the weird curve towards his tail, it looks like something has actually HAPPENED to him, but I can't think of anything that would have caused it. The tank only has platies and as said before, they've all been living well for over a year, I've never had any of them get any illnesses.

It's also worth noting that Longboy is the only one this has happened to. The others all still look totally okay, even a few that I got at the same time. One of my thoughts was this could just be age catching up with him, I doubt it'd really 'affect' fish like that but I can't think of a disease that would do this either. I have a brochure on common fish illnesses, it doesn't match anything there (except maybe Dropsy due to the lumpiness on his head, but that's a very massive 'maybe'.)

Anyone got any insight or advice? I hope the little guy's going to be okay, it just looks like such a strange thing to happen to him out of nowhere, and to only him.

 

[Andy Sager]

To me, this looks like a case of mal-nutrition. I don't see any bumps on his head but I do see muscular shrinkage behind the head where the " shoulders" should be. That means that if he was eating, he wasn't eating either enough or the right foods to give him good muscular or skeletal tone. That it happened " suddenly" is probably it all catching up with him.
There is another possibility and that is the fish has a form of tuberculosis that also can cause skeletal disfigurement. The sunken belly can also be a result of this.
I see other Platies in the picture so let's start with how long have you had this fish and what food(s) have you been feeding?

 

[Capt. Neckbeard]

To me, this looks like a case of mal-nutrition. I don't see any bumps on his head but I do see muscular shrinkage behind the head where the " shoulders" should be. That means that if he was eating, he wasn't eating either enough or the right foods to give him good muscular or skeletal tone. That it happened " suddenly" is probably it all catching up with him.
There is another possibility and that is the fish has a form of tuberculosis that also can cause skeletal disfigurement. The sunken belly can also be a result of this.
I see other Platies in the picture so let's start with how long have you had this fish and what food(s) have you been feeding?

This one in particular, I'd say about a year. I started keeping my fish in September 2021, since then some bred, a few died, I replaced them, they bred more, etc... so it's hard to tell exactly which ones have been there since the beginning and which ones came along later, but I'd be willing to bet Longboy was born in the tank.

As for the food, it's regular flake food, specifically 'AQUARIAN Complete Nutrition, Aquarium Tropical & Temperate Fish Food Flakes'. It's what I've used since the start, and I've never noticed this with any of the others, so it doesn't seem like the food itself is the issue. would it maybe just be that he isn't eating enough of it himself? Could this form of 'malnutrition' fall under 'starvation'? Or could it be from over-eating instead?

 

[Colin_T]

It's either old age, an internal growth (tumour) or Fish Tuberculosis (TB). There's no cure for any of those issues so either euthanise her or wait till she stops eating and then euthanise her.

 

[Capt. Neckbeard]

It's either old age, an internal growth (tumour) or Fish Tuberculosis (TB). There's no cure for any of those issues so either euthanise her or wait till she stops eating and then euthanise her.

Well it's a shame to hear that, I'll just try and keep him comfortable for the time being.

Thanks for all the info anyway, everyone.

 

[Andy Sager]

This one in particular, I'd say about a year. I started keeping my fish in September 2021, since then some bred, a few died, I replaced them, they bred more, etc... so it's hard to tell exactly which ones have been there since the beginning and which ones came along later, but I'd be willing to bet Longboy was born in the tank.

As for the food, it's regular flake food, specifically 'AQUARIAN Complete Nutrition, Aquarium Tropical & Temperate Fish Food Flakes'. It's what I've used since the start, and I've never noticed this with any of the others, so it doesn't seem like the food itself is the issue. would it maybe just be that he isn't eating enough of it himself? Could this form of 'malnutrition' fall under 'starvation'? Or could it be from over-eating instead?

There is a form of TB that effects the liver that will cause the fish to lose weight and I have a sneaking suspicion that that is what's happening here since you are feeding more than just one food. ( It is highly probable that the fish came to you with the infection and was just waiting for an opportunity to inflame so there was nothing you could do to prevent it. ) It looks like malnutrition because of the muscular lose but it is in fact the inability to digest the food to build muscle that causes the fish to lose weight. Sadly, there's nothing you can really do for this fish and to be honest, euthanizing it would be a more humane option (imo) than letting it continue to decline. TB can be contagious when a live fish eats a fish that is infected with TB and live fish eat stressed or dead fish naturally. It's also very important to not handle the infected fish with your bare hands and that you sterilize whatever equipment you use to dispose of the fish. Unfortunately, fish TB is one of the few diseases that is contagious to humans. Don't be alarmed but do be safe.
Sorry for the bad news but at least your other Platies look healthy.