I went to feed my fish this morning and one of my platys was lying on the bottom on his side and he wouldn't come up for food. I noticed a couple weeks ago he seemed stressed so I measured the water parameters and ammonia and nitrite were 0, and nitrates were about 20, so everything was within a healthy range. I decided to just keep the tank really clean so I've been doing water changes once or twice a week and everything has been where it should be. All of a sudden, this morning he got a lot worse. He hasn't shown any symptoms of anything other than stress and I've been monitoring him pretty closely. Is there anything I can do to help him? I have no idea what it is because there's not really any symptoms so I don't know how to treat it.
Platy lying on bottom barely moving
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Andy Sager
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It will all depend on what the cause of the stress is. If it's other fish picking at it, you need to isolate the effected fish. If it's disease, you should place the fish in a hospital tank. So the first step is observation to try and determine what is causing the stress.
I think it must be a disease because all the other fish leave him alone and the water quality is good. I looked it up and I wonder if it might be swim bladder disease. I'm just not sure because it was so sudden. It does seem to fit because he's lying on the bottom on his side, but he's not really trying to swim so it might just be something else and he's really sick and can't swim.
Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
Sadly, there is no one " swim bladder" disease because the condition can be caused by a number of things. Sometimes it's temporary, sometimes permanent. It could also be from an injury that burst the bladder. Bottom line, I would place the fish in a hospital tank for observation. You may need to hand feed the fish if it is unable to swim to the food so being isolated will make this easier since there will be no competition for the food. If the condition was caused by a non bacterial reason, raising the water temperature by 2-4 degrees Fahrenheit can have some positive effects. If you go the medicinal route, I would use either Kanamycin or minocycline depending on water Ph and GH.
Wish I could be more help.
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