My Platy feels queasy...is there a disease in my tank?

[Daniel Jackson]

Hi folks,

well, this is indeed my first time using an internet forum *proud of me...hehe*
I'm from Germany but I tried to avoid german forums in order to improve my English skills, I hope you can understand it.

I wish, I could have better news than telling you about the problems infested my tank.
Some weeks ago, I bought a new aquarium of about 55 gallons. It's a fresh water aquarium, now populated with six playts, six guppys, four armoured catfishes and last but not at least a bristlenose catfish. I got lots of plants in there (about 20 plants) and everything worked fine until I realized, that a platy disappeared.
I found him hiding behind the radix. He seems to be sick and dull, his gills are really swelled compared to other ones. What does this mean?
A little while ago, I gave them something to eat and I was wondering to see him reappear from his dark and deserted hiding place, where he spends the whole day long, waiting for something alone. :?
He has a really weird behavior and that confuses me.

What could be wrong in my tank? This is the only fish in my tank, that feels queasy...is there any possibility to recall him to life??

I'd like to thank everyone reading this message and those who'd like to help me.

Have all a nice day!!

Daniel Jackson

 

[Zagz]

Welcome to AA! Glad to have you here. Ok on to your problem. I would make an initial guess that your ammonia or nitrites are up in the tank. How many weeks ago did you set up your tank? Do you have a test kit and if so what are your parameters? I would recommend doing a water change as soon as possible. How often do you do water changes? Sorry for all the questions but it is necessary info to help you. Are only his gills swelled and are they red at all? If his scales are sticking out that could be dropsy. Is there any chance of you posting a picture?

 

[Devilishturtles]

Welcome to AA! I agree with Zagz on the questions. Some readings on your water conditions would help. Otherwise, water changes are a good first step.

 

[Daniel Jackson]

Hi Zagz, Devilishturtles,

thanks for your help. I'm trying to answer your question as good as I can. To the test kit...unfortunately I do not have one. Such a kit is really expensive here in Germany. It costs something about 130 bucks (in US-Dollars)...I suppose to have the money in 2 weeks for it (hopefully that wouldn't be too late).
Now to my tank...I bought it on the 26 th december last year. I already had a tank of about 16 gallons in my office at the University. The problem is, I had to abandon it, because of renovation works. So I bought this new one and was obliged to arrange the whole stuff in one single day. (that means to put up the aquarium, grit, water, plants and the fishes)
I know, I had to wait a little while of about 2 weeks until assigning it with fishes, but I didn't have a choice.
I already changed the water 5 days ago (16 gallons), because I had problems with algaes (their gone now...I put a solution in it, which was recommended by my salesman for aquarium stuff.)
Normally I change every 2 or 3 weeks the water (one third of the tanks volume)

To the gills:
They are swelled but not red...it seems to me, that they have a kind of white color. I'll try to make a photo a little later. It's now approx. 3 am in Germany and the aquarium light is now off

Just a question according to your initial guess...if my ammonia or nitrites shall be up, wouldn't there be the same problems with the other fishes? I mean, every other one seems to feel fine. They're swiming the whole day long, being very active, four of them are heavy with young, they're munch very well and so on...
Everything seems to work perfect except of this one platy.

 

[Devilishturtles]

Normally I change every 2 or 3 weeks the water (one third of the tanks volume)

I'd not go longer than 2 weeks, even with your tank cycled. If you just put the fish in there, I would imagine that your fish is suffering a bit from poor water quality, since you had to put the tank up quickly like you did.

I would do frequent (maybe every other day) water changes. This way, you can keep up good water quality until you can get a test kit. Does any place around you do a water test? Most pet stores around here will do water tests for free, I don't know how it is in Germany.

To answer your question, you would think it would affect everyone in the tank, but prehaps not. It could be that the fish that is being affected is weaker than the other fish (possibly from stress, shipping, or just a bad fish from the store).

HTH.

 

[Daniel Jackson]

Hey there,

I finally finish to set up a page about my tank. Under the title you can see a hyperlink, called "My Problem child" ( it is red colored). Just click there and you can see my sick fish. Perhaps you can determine the desease in my tank.
The website can be found under: http://www.physik.de.vu

1000 thanks for your help

Greetings

Daniel Jackson

 

[Zagz]

It looks like septicemia, with a possible fungus as a secondary problem. I would still go with the water changes every second day and see if your platy improves. As DT says the other fish might be stronger than the platy and not affected yet. You might start treatment for fungus, but first if possible I would QT the platy. I would contact your lfs and see if one of them might test your water for you.

 

[Daniel Jackson]

Hi there,

well, first I contacted my lfs and they told me approx. the same thing like you do.
I was wondering but indeed, they made a water test for me!! Despite of our customer-unfriendly service here in Germany, I was really wondering to hear, that these test was on top of everything absolutely free. ^^
Well now the problem is gone...unfortunately, my platy is dead...I found him today after work
However, I made a partial water change of about 20 gallons and put a medicine in there, that was given to me by my lfs. These medicine should protect the other fishes from being affected. I hope it'll works!

In any case...here are the results of my water test for a 55 gallon tank:

pH 7.5
KH 6.0
nitrite 0 mg/L
ammonia 0 mg/L
Ferric 0.25mg/L

Ones again, thank you very much!!

Daniel Jackson

 

[Zagz]

Sorry about your loss. Did they happen to test for nitrate? If you have no nitrates your tank isn't cycled and you will have to do water changes every second day at least IMO. Meds can affect your cycle, what medication did they give you? I would use a declorinator when doing water changes and not worry about the meds. You can also do larger water changes if necessary. Even 50% won't hurt the fish.

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

Zagz, it's possible that German for Nitrate translates to Ferric, I can't see them testing for Iron. just a hunch.

Yes, you can see the redness in the fish, the swelling of tisue is consistant with septicemia, tho it wouldn't have been my first guess. Sorry for your loss.

 

[Zagz]

Oz you might be right, I assumed they were testing for iron LOL. Couldn't figure out why, but I gave up figuring out why lfs's do what they do.

 

[Daniel Jackson]

Hi there,

well, they weren't testing for nitrate at all, just nitrite, which was 0.
Sorry, I didn't know the proper word...I mean iron instead of ferric.

To the med-problem: They gave me a solution against fungus, small gill parasites like "Dactylogyrus" (is this the right word?) and told me I should first begin with a partial water change of one third and then putting in the half dose rate.
Now to the water changes...I always use a declorinator. The water in Berlin is not so fish-friendly so there's no chance not to use it.

Well nevertheless besides my loss of one platy, there seem to be no further indications for any other disease yet. I will see, how things will or will not change in the near future. I hope that the terror with fungus & Co. has come to an end. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

greetings

Daniel Jackson

 

[Daniel Jackson]

Well, here are the finally results of my water quality

Hey folks,

finally I got the money and bought a test kit. Here are the results of my water quality:

Temp. 80-82 °F (27°C)
pH 6.5-7
total hardness 16°
carbonate hardness 8°
nitrite 0-0.0025 mg/L
nitrate 0 mg/L
ammonia 0 mg/L
phosphate 0.25-0.5 mg/L
Fe 0.3 mg/L
CO2 12 mg/L
O2 5-6 mg/L

Have a nice day

Daniel Jackson

 

[Zagz]

Keep an eye on your parameters, your tank isn't cycled until you have nitrates. Good to hear that there have been no more deaths.

 

[7Enigma]

Keep an eye on your parameters, your tank isn't cycled until you have nitrates. Good to hear that there have been no more deaths.

Zagz,

Why would you not think his tank is cycled? It has been running for several weeks, he has a large amount of fish in the tank, and he has virtually no ammonia or nitrIte.

In his original post he mentioned he has ~20 plants. As I understand it plants do not readily use nitrIte. Since they were put in at the same time as the fish, there wasn't a lag time for the nitrAte level to build up, so I think its plausible that the plants are essentially using all nitrogen sources in the tank, so while not biologically cycled by bacteria, it IS cycled by plants/bacteria.

I think the only problem here might be that due to a lack of ammonia (plants most easily used nitrogen source), the nitrIte to nitrAte bacteria have not multiplied to a high amount. He might have a very uncommon problem (and more dangerous) of having to do PWC's to reduce nitrIte in the water and not the nitrAte that most of us deal with...at least until you get some more nitrIte to nitrAte producing bacteria (but you still might never show nitrAte)

justin

 

[Zagz]

I agree that plants will keep the nitrate levels low but I don't believe they should show at 0. His tank has been set up since end of December. It can easily take 6 weeks or more in some cases for a tank to run a cycle. There was no seeded media for the tank to jumpstart the cycle. I might be misunderstanding the time frame of the setup, in which case my theory would be wrong. I'm not an expert on plants and nitrates, I was under the impression from those that keep heavily planted tanks that nitrates will still show up. Now I am curious too. Perhaps those that have heavily planted tanks will offer their experiences.

 

[7Enigma]

A concern I would have would be what happens if for some reason the plants quickly die (lack of CO2, trace elements, light, addition of salt, or some crazy plant disease (there are plant virii and bacteria that can devastate plants as quickly as Ebola in humans/monkeys).

It's probably not a great idea to solely count on one kind of filtration (be it plant or biological), because if something bad happens you lose all your nitrifiers.

 

[Zagz]

Interestingly enough, I keep learning more and more about this hobby. True that I know nothing almost about planted tanks. If you are interested there is more discussion on this very subject also relating to Daniel's tanks here . You have brought to light for me a whole new area of this hobby, thanks! I love this hobby and this place! Where else can you go and be treated with respect even with varying opinions and can continue to learn without any fear of being ridiculed?

 

[7Enigma]

I have to agree, I have not met a better group of people on a forum. I have and had belonged to a number of different forums on a slew of unrelated topics, and this one by far has the most courteous people. Which is actually surprising, taking into consideration the number of people that come here AFTER or in the process of losing a bunch of fish/plants/animals. I would have expected this forum to be more rude, but was pleasantly surprised. 8)