Female platy death, dumbfounded

[rpgmomma8404]

My water is fine other then the nitrates being a little high (I had to skip a water change this week due to Halloween and health problems). Nothing seemed wrong with her as far as I could tell. I'm pretty sure she ate this morning too when I fed them. The only thing I can think of is my male swordtail has been kind of a jerk towards her. They were all fine at first but he seem to like chasing her around the tank and picking on her. Is it possible that he killed her? or the stress of him chasing her around did her in? I know the 15 gallon is too small for them. I'm in the process of cycling a 29 gallon and re-homing the goldfish that are currently in the tank. Will be switching them to that tank once it's ready.

This is the third female platy that I have had that has died. I'm not sure if it's just something I'm doing wrong or platies are more sensitive then I thought?

 

[rmiller]

How many platies do you have? If its only the one male one female, its possible that he harassed her to death. Before we rule it a homicide, let's rule out some other things. Can you list your water parameters for us? Any strange behavior or marks? Injuries? Did you notice any ich, sometimes it hides in the gills til it really gets ahold.

 

[rpgmomma8404]

How many platies do you have? If its only the one male one female, its possible that he harassed her to death. Before we rule it a homicide, let's rule out some other things. Can you list your water parameters for us? Any strange behavior or marks? Injuries? Did you notice any ich, sometimes it hides in the gills til it really gets ahold.

Sure, yeah I don’t know why I didn’t post the water parameters before. I keep forgetting to do so when I have problems.

Ammonia was 0ppm
Nitrite was 0ppm
Nitrate was around 10-20ppm (only because I did one water change last week)
PH was sitting around 7.5

Basically when we first bought fish for the 15 gallon, my boyfriend bought two swordtails (male and female) and one female platy. Platy died within a day or so. We got a replacement fish and it died the next day after bringing her home. I told my boyfriend we might as well cut our losses and forget about replacing the dead fish.

So, we decided to go to a different pets store bought another female swordtail and some danio’s. The danio’s didn’t work out so we took them back and got the female platy that died today (had her for a good month or so). I know one heck of a back story but I figured all this information would be helpful.

The danio’s infested the tank with ich but it cleared up really well.

Only behavior I noticed on her recently is that there was a little dip in the sand that she has been hanging out at for the most part. Her fins weren’t clamped but her gills were going rapidly. She ate fine and other then that seemed fine.