sick platty

hello everyone, first post so sorry if this is thr wrong bit of the forum, not sure if it counts as an emergency or not!
Ive had fish for about six months and one of the very first ones I got is now sick. Its a female platty, and she has always been well, and had loads of babies.

Lately though she has started to lose weight and hasnt had any babies for ages. She isnt eating as much and spends a lot of time hiding behind some of the plants. She swims as if she is stiff and has started runbing herself against the gravel and ornamesnts but I cant see any whitespots.

Nitrate 0, Ammonia 0, PH 7.8

It's a Juwell 160 tank, and the other fish I have are 1 male platty, 4 female plattys, 6 neon tetras, 6 harlequin ras, 2 Bristlenose plecs, 4 shrimps.

Any idea what I can do?

Hi oldtrout...

I assume you mean nitrIte is 0.. do you know what the nitrAte reading is? If that's the case, the water seems fine.
How much & how often do you do water changes?

The platty could be getting to the point of old age & depending on how tha tank was cycled would make a difference if she was a cycle pioneer. Her life span would be considerably shorter if she has cycled the tank.
I hope this helps

Hiya munchycarrot, thanks for your help. Yeah, sorry I did mean the nitrite os 0, sorry about that. I dont know what the nitrate is as I dont have the test for that atm, but I do weekly water changes of about 20-30% so think it should be ok if the other readings are (what do you think, is that right?)

She was one of the fish I cycled the tank with, but the others are all fine. Is there anything I could dose the tank with to help her?

You could probably do with keeping an eye on the Nitrate and ph too just to make sure that everything is fine, but it's good that the ammonia and Nitrite are 0.

As munchy says, it could just be that this is a failing fish, especially if she has had lots of fry and went through the cyling of the tank too.

I have had a few plattys that have shown similar symptoms and tbh they have all died.

This happened very quickly! I have seen this with other fish and to use the word 'failing' is one way to put i! Just keep an eye on her

Hiya again, thanks for all your help with this. There is no change in the platty, but I have bought something called melafix, as well as something called Interpet Number 9 (recomended by the pet shop). Can I use both of these together?

You could, although I am not sure shy you want to use them? If you think there may be some sort of internal parasitic problem then the N9 is what you need, but if you have a fish with cutsom or fungal problems etc them the Melafix is what you need.

Are all your other fish ok?

As has been said, if this fish went through the cycling of your tank, and has also had a lot of fry, it might just be that she is 'failing' and there is nothing you can do.

Well I ended up putting the fish to sleep today. It wasn't able to swim hardly, and not eating so I followed the clove oil method and it worked really well.

None of the other fish are ill so it must have been a failing fish as you suggested.

Thanks for all your help and advice anyway.

Sorry about that, oldtrout, but well done you for euthanizing it. I wish I'd done this a few days ago when I noticed that one of my Rams was failing 'coz now I can't find it at all so I presume it's died and is decomposing somewhere in the tank...

Ah Mary, is this another one? Didn't one of them die a week or so ago?

Yep and I lost two yesterday - the Ram and a Molly that I had for over a year. It's a heartbreaking but also very rewarding hobby and luckily the pros outweigh the cons. It just works out very expensive replacing fish but I suppose on the plus side, it gives you a chance to try out new species 'coz I'll be getting a new plec to take the place of the Ram that died.

I can see a branch of Plecaholics Anonymous opening up on here soon!

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