Platy Issues

[aveldina]

The platy in my 36G aquarium seems to be having some issues.. He is lacking his usual bright color, is unusually bloated and his scales appear raised off his body. He's not nearly as active as he normally is. He looked fine at the start of the week. I'm going to be pulling him out into a QT tank this morning. Any suggestions for a treatment?

His symptoms seem to match the Dropsy symptoms on "The Tropical Tank". The rest of the fish in my tank are looking fine and behaving normally. I checked my water parameters this morning and have Am: 0, NI: 0, NA: 5ppm, pH: 7.6. I keep a log of water parameters and have had no issues for several months. The fish are fed flake food, shrimp pellets, tetra color bits and frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms.

This fish came from my roommate's aquarium after he was having issues with this platy chasing his other older male platy. I know he's been having issues with losing fish in his 20G aquarium lately and has lost several of his platys. But I've had my platy moved over into in my aquarium for a couple of months now. My big question is where could this fish have picked up what is causing these symptoms? Is it possible that he was carrying something from the other aquarium? Could bad food have caused it? Suggestions?

 

[joy13]

It does sound like dropsy. Dropsy is usually a symptom of an underlying disease that has caused the kidneys to shut down. It usually isn't contagious, but can effect a whole tank because the underlying problem ican be bacterial related.

Bad food could be a problem, if it was contaminated. I know last summer the pet stores pulled a lot of fish food because of melamine was found in pellet foods.

Do you have a hospital tank? If so move it to that and treat it there. Look up treating dropsy with epsom salts and also with a broad spectrum antibiotic. I wouldn't treat the fish in the tank if there is healthy fish because most antibiotics can cause a mini cycle. After you move the sick fish do a PWC just to be on the safe side. An emergency hospital tank doesn't have to be fancy a 5 gallon bucket with a heater and a filter.

 

[aveldina]

I've just finished moving the fish into my 10G QT. I seem to have caught it early as he is still eating and still swimming decently well to hide when I tried to catch him. If you leave him alone though he just sits at the top and does not do much. I'll look into the epsom salts right away and pick up an antibiotic.

 

[aveldina]

Sad to report that I did lose this fish. I looked up and tried the treatment listed above with epsom salts and a general antibiotic. The epsom salts did indeed help the fish to stop retaining so much fluid, but the raised scales never did go away and the fish slowly became less active and died on the 5th day of treatment.
I still am unsure what the cause was, however I do know that the mother of this fish likely died of a similar cause and several other of the fish from the mother platy have died in a similar way in my roommate's aquarium. Strange. The rest of my hyper tetras and catfish are fine, but I'm going to miss the bright orange splash of color the platy provided in my aquarium.
Thanks for the advice!