Platy with swim bladder disorder? 08/06/2010
Hey crew
My female platy was found stuck to the tank filter a few days ago. After turning it off, I noticed she wasn't able to swim so well and had a slight lump where she had been stuck. An hour later, same thing happened. I moved her to a hospital tank as she was unable to swim well (slow movement with sudden small jerk plus wobbles from side to side) - ammonia and nitrite zero, nitrate at normal London levels. I treated the tank with Interpet's Swim Bladder medication and added aquatic salts as stated on the packet. I tried her on a crushed frozen pea (cooked first obviously) but she didn't eat it. After several days, there appears no improvement although she is desperately trying to eat some small fish flakes on the surface and has passed some fish pooh - I am assuming this is a good sign.
I've put in a small filter although she gets blown about even by the smallest of water jets. Should I continue the medication for the full 12 days? Could it be something else?
<Hmm... could maybe be constipation or something digestive. I might try feeding some greens (chopped up romaine lettuce, spinach, peas, etc.)>
Many thanks
Dr Patrick Nunn
<De nada,
Sara M/L>

Platy fish excreting white stuff 2/14/09 Hi Crew; My platy fish is excreting a lot of white stuff from his/her lower region. They are like strings about and inch and a half long that do not fall off right away. It looks like it could be waste but it is white and there is a lot of it. The fish looks bigger so she could be pregnant. This has been going on for about two weeks and I have no idea what is wrong with the fish. He/she seems active and healthy. Thanks for your help! Joni <I'm assuming that the white stuff you are talking about are faeces. Under certain situations, such as gut irritation, the intestine produces excessive amounts of mucous, and these bulk out the faecal material, producing long, pale stringy faeces that often hang from the anus. My guess is that's what you're seeing here. The commonest problem with Platies is a failure to understand their needs. These are herbivores that should be fed ample green materials. Algae-based flake (Spirulina flake) is a good staple, augmented with things like Sushi Nori, cooked or tinned peas, cooked spinach, and thinly sliced cucumber. Avoid feeding them standard flake foods and do not feed them freeze-dried anything, except maybe once a week, tops. Wet frozen bloodworms and live daphnia are both good supplements to their diet, live daphnia being an especially good laxative. Cheers, Neale.>

Xiphophorus maculatus (health, diet) 10/12/08
Hello!
I am just wondering if stringy feces are always sings of internal parasites. I have a Platy that has string like feces, but the she is acting as normal as she ever has! Thank you very much! You are always so helpful and the first I come to for my fish advice!
Davenpom
<While it possible that your Platy has a parasitic infection (such as Hexamita) that is irritating the gut wall and causing extra mucous to be produced, and so resulting in stringy faeces, that wouldn't be the first thing I'd worry about. No, instead review diet: Platies are herbivores, meaning they eat mostly plant material. In the aquarium this can be either algae (e.g., Sushi Nori) or else algae-based prepared foods (e.g., Spirulina flake). Most tropical fish foods (flakes, pellets, etc.) are formulated for carnivores, and lack the correct balance of fibre and vitamins herbivores need. How herbivorous fish react ranges from constipation (the probable issue here) through to extreme bad health (things like Head and Lateral Line Erosion). So, make sure you are using herbivore flake and not standard tropical fish food. And yes, herbivore foods are perfectly safe for use in mixed community tanks, and things like tetras and Corydoras will come to no harm at all eating them. Cheers, Neale.>
Re: Xiphophorus maculatus (health, diet) 10/12/08
Thank you Neal. One last question, does this mean theoretically I could feed my Platy vegetables?
<Yes, though some vegetables are better than others! Cooked spinach, blanched lettuce, thinly sliced cucumber, tinned peas and cooked rice often work well with herbivores. Any "sea vegetable" sold in an Asian food market should be good, too, for example Sushi Nori. Herbivorous fish used to standard foods may turn their noses up at vegetables at first -- leave the veggies to soften up for a couple of days and don't feed the fish for the interim. All this said, standard issue herbivore flake or wet frozen foods may well be more balanced and easier to use.>
I have seen this in forums and such! Thanks! Marion
<Cheers, Neale.>

Long strands of platy poo   9/3/07 Hi, <<Hello, Lori. Tom here.>> I have a female Mickey Mouse Platy living in my 20 gallon tank with two Peppered Corys, one Zebra Danio, one black guppy, four two month old Platy fry, and four one month old Platy fry. <<Nice.>> She is going to have another batch soon (in the next two weeks.) Ever since I got her, about six months ago, she has produced long strands of poo. They are red, green, or brownish in color, and are up to about six centimeters in length. I feed my fish two to three times a day Nutrafin Max Color Enhancing food, and I feed my fry, Hikari First Bites. Please help me, I don't know whether or not to worry. <<No worries, Lori. If the feces were white, we'd likely have a problem. Otherwise, she's pooing what she's eating. Keep in mind that 'color-enhancing' foods like the Nutrafin product contain items like red-algae (pigments) as well as other natural additives that are meant specifically to bring out the colors in fish. These also 'enhance' the color of their fecal matter. The length may seem a bit disarming to you but this isn't out of the ordinary, really. I've got a Sailfin Pleco that appears to produce "spaghetti" on its diet largely of algae wafers and zucchini. Nothing whatsoever to be concerned about.>> Thanks again, Lori <<You're welcome. Tom>>

Platy Health  6/9/07 Hello, I have a question about platy health. <OK.> I have a 20 gallon freshwater tank that has been up and running for approximately three months, with fish in it for approximately six weeks. <After six weeks, should be close to being stable and mature.> Currently, I have two female platies and one male platy, and three peppered Cory cats. My tank stats are as follows -- ammonia, 0; nitrite, 0; nitrate, 10; pH 7.7. <All sounds fine, though hardness is the other thing to watch. Platies like it "hard" on whatever scale you're using. Adding a little crushed coral or coral sand to the substrate can help buffer the water, keeping the pH and hardness where your platies want it.> My question is about the platies. Two of them occasionally have clear feces, or clear segments in a string of brown feces. <Lack of fibre in their diet. Attend well: platies are herbivores. In the wild, they feed mostly on algae plus small animals like mosquito larvae. In captivity, they need a diet based mostly on plant foods. Most of the generic tropical fish foods (e.g., flake) are formulated for carnivores, such as tetras, that mostly eat small animals. So, you need to stop using that sort of food and switch to something suited to platies. To begin with, there is "vegetarian flake food", often based on the alga Spirulina. This is an ideal staple. You can also use things from the kitchen: thinly sliced cucumber, blanched lettuce, crushed cooked peas, Sushi Nori, and so on all work well.> Do you think it's likely that they have parasites? <No.> Otherwise, they appear healthy and friendly, and they eat well (although one of my female platies is rather fat -- I had assumed that she was pregnant, but she's been pretty big looking for a few weeks now without producing any fry). Would you recommend that I give them some medicated food, or just watch and wait for a while longer? <For now, concentrate on improving their diet.> If I tried to introduce some more vegetable matter into their diet, do you think that would help? <Yes.> They often bite at my plastic plants, so I wonder if they're wanting some veggies. <What you're seeing is their normal behaviour. In the wild, they bite algae from solid surfaces, including plant leaves. Given fish can't talk, yours are trying very VERY hard to tell you what they want!!!> I want to make sure that they are disease free before I introduce any other fish into the tank (I do have a smaller tank that I'm getting ready as a QT tank, but I didn't quarantine any of these fish since they were the first residents). <Sounds a good plan. Platies mix well with other hardwater-loving fish. Guppies are ideal tankmates. Peppered Corydoras do well in such conditions, too, so those were a good choice. Avoid soft water things like tetras and gouramis.> Thanks in advance for your help, <No problems.> Nicole <Cheers, Neale>
Re: Platy Health (for Neale)  6/10/07 Dear Neale, <Hello Nicole,> Thanks for your help! My platies didn't seem particularly enthused about the bits of cucumber that I tried out on them today, but I will get some veg flake food and see how they take to that. <Ah, the trick with cucumber is slice it thin and leave it to soften up. Most freshwater fish cannot digest terrestrial plants "raw" -- too much cellulose and other strengthening materials. But 24 hours after being put in the tank, it should be nice and squidgy, and the platies will chow down. Try other things if this doesn't work. Tinned peas, blanched lettuce, softened zucchini, and Sushi Nori are all good.> Hopefully I can train them to eat their veggies :) <They will. Appetite is a great sauce, so don't feed them anything else for a day or two, and they'll nibble on the veggies sooner or later. This is one instance of "being cruel to be kind" -- the more veggies your platies eat, and the less animal protein, the healthier they will be and the brighter their colours.> It's great to talk to someone who's so knowledgeable about fish, it take a lot of worry out of being a fish parent. <Kind of you to say so!> Cheers, Nicole <Good luck! Neale>

Huge platy   5/9/07 Hi there! Thanks much for your site; I've referred to it several times in the past 2 years, since we started keeping fish..... This is my first time asking my own question; I apologize if it's been covered. I checked several of the site's pages and didn't find it specifically, so here goes... I have a female Mickey mouse platy who started getting really fat. She's the only platy we've had for several months, and there are no other Livebearers in the tank, so I'm fairly certain she's not pregnant. <Mmm, well they do/can "store" sperm in their tracts...> She'd been living in a 55 gal community tank for the past year or so, <Oh! Not this long> but last night I moved her to a 5 gal hospital tank. All water parameters on both tanks are fine, with the exception of the nitrates being a little high perhaps. <How high is high? I would keep below 20 ppm, ideally below 10 ppm> She hasn't acted any different than she ever had, but a few weeks ago she started getting a huge tummy. She does eat like crazy, <What sorts of foods?> so we wondered if she was over eating, but the past couple days it started to seem as though she was curving and becoming deformed because her tummy is so huge. She looks like she's going to burst. She still swims around, her fins aren't clamped, and she doesn't seem to hide any more than normal. When she was in the big tank, she seemed sociable....I moved her, though, hoping to limit her food intake and started her on Mara cyn-two, thinking it may be dropsy. I've read that that's a symptom, as opposed to a disease, <Yes> and that it's quite difficult to "fix" <Depending on cause/s> but I felt I needed to try something. Plus, as I mentioned she looks like she's going to burst, she's got a couple things on her side that look like little splits. Is it possible that it's a tumor? <Mmm, maybe... but likely just stretched skin, insides...> And if so, what can be done about that? <Solve the cause/s...> I know it must be very challenging to help me when all you have to go by are my lame descriptions, but I'd greatly appreciate anything you can offer. I didn't feed her fish food last night, but did give her a pea, thinking it might even be constipation. I just don't know what to do for her, and I feel bad seeing her so gigantic. Any ideas on what could be happening and what we can do to help her? Thank you so much! Nicki <I suggest a regimen of Epsom Salt treatment... for its laxative and ionic/cathartic effects... and the feeding of some sort of small crustacean foods that have the former effect... Brine Shrimp (Artemia) or Daphnia (frozen/defrosted is fine)... Please read here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/saltusefaqs.htm re the salt use. Bob Fenner>
Re: huge platy   5/10/07 Hi again, and thank you for your reply.... We had been giving her a variety of foods, including Tetra crisps, flakes, blood worms, Tubifex worms, Spirulina flakes, and occasional peas. <Ah, yes... needs more "roughage" here> Today I did a 50% water change and added some Epsom salt with the new water to the hospital tank. I have to say YIKES, because our nitrates were considerably higher than you suggested. They were somewhere over 40, which, according to our test kit, was acceptable (the 40 was, not over...). The reds on the little comparing card are kind of hard to distinguish between... <Yes...> (Our kit is the freshwater master kit by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) Are several water changes the best way to lower that? <Yes, in the short term. Please read here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwnitrates.htm and the linked FAQs file above> It appears the 50% change took care of the little tank, but our big tank has been higher for some time, even after our weekly 30-40% changes. I found an article online which suggested doing several changes in one night, rather than several smaller ones over several nights. What are your thoughts? <Posted... please learn to/use the indices, search tool on WWM> Also, should I discontinue the Maracyn-two in the hospital tank? Thanks again for taking time to help me. Nicki <Yes, I would and you're welcome. BobF>

Choking Platy?   5/23/06 I have a Dwarf Sunset Platy who appears to be choking on a piece of mashed green pea that I just fed her. Is it possible for them to choke, and how can I help her out?? Thanks so much! :) -Getting All Choked Up <Really best to "wait and see"... most likely can/will dislodge on its own... more likely to damage the fish trying to net, fix this. Bob Fenner>
Re: Choking Platy?    5/24/06 Okay, thanks so much!! She rammed herself into the glass and got it out by herself eventually. Hope it doesn't happen again :) <Me too! BobF>

Sick Platy 6/31/05 Hello, <Hey, Mike G here> I have a platy mom who has white string like fecal matter coming out of her. <That could be exactly what it is. Constipation often exhibits the symptoms you describe. It could also be an internal parasitic infection, but I doubt it.> I purchased her at a pet store along with two other very fat mommy platy's (Educational summer project for grandson.) What can I do to help her?   She is not doing very well.  All of her fry have died.    <Hmm... I would suggest feeding her boiled peas with the skin removed. (Just the pea mush, in other words). This should help loosen her bowels and, if she is suffering from constipation, should help her a lot. If, in 1 week, she is still exhibiting the same white stringy feces, I would suggest feeding an antiparasitic medicated food. I recommend New Life Spectrum's Thera A.> The other two Moms are doing well.  Will they get sick too? <If it is constipation, doubtful. If it is internal parasites, they could likely already be infected.> It would seem that Granny is going to be the one getting the education. <Hehe... isn't that how it always seems to work out? Best of luck! Mike G>