Ailing Platy and Filter Question

[Hereford]

About two weeks ago a platy in my 10g community tank began showing signs of distress, lying listlessly on the bottom and rarely swimming. She swims occasionally, just for moments, seeming to want to feed. I can't say that she has had any luck. I expected her to die in a day or two but she is still alive, albeit barely. She has been active and healthy for about four months and I cannot detect any sign of a common disease. Her tankmates are active and healthy and the tank is cycling nicely. I don't expect anyone to offer a remedy but wonder if this is a reckognized condition.

-Thanks-

Question: The aforementioned 10g came with a UGF which works just fine. But after six months of rigorous vacuuming and reading comments in this venue about the drawbacks of the UGF, I decided to try another filter. I Iinstalled a TETRA "Whisper10" HOB which has been running concurrently with the UGF for the last four days. I'm the only one I know who keeps fish and I am no expert. Can anyone comment on my choice of this product? Should I continue concurrent operation? Discard one or the other? Both?

-Thanks again-

[wataugachicken]

i use the whisper 10's on my smaller tanks. i've never had a problem with them, and one thing i like is that i can do a water change and not have to turn the filter off. they're also very easy to take apart and clean when necessary. i would run both filters for another week or so, then you can take out the UGF without messing up the bacterial community. when the filter cartridge gets clogged up, rinse it in old tank water after a water change, if it's very bad, scrub it with a toothbrush. only replace it when it's falling apart, then cut the old one in half, throw away the carbon bits (don't rinse it in tap water), and stick it in the filter behind the new one.

my female betta just went through the same thing as your platy. after i put my black moor into the big tank (mistake) she got very annoyed and would hide in the plants all the time. she used to swim all over the tank, feed with the rasboras, hang out under the driftwood with the plecos, etc. . he was only in there for a week, but i guess it was enough to stress her out. i don't now, maybe she was jealous. but she got very listless and died after a couple of weeks. no signs physical illness like redness or other discoloration, everybody else was perfectly fine. pretty much just laid down and died, albeit over a long period.
have you added any new fish lately? what else do you have? is it possible that one of the other fish was bothering her so much when she was healthy that she got very stressed out from it?

[TheMightyQueenPixie]

Did you check for ammo, nitrites and nitrates? Platys are pretty hardy and tolerant of some pretty poor conditions...
Is she pregnant? Fish donot lay down to give birth, however if they cannot give birth they will go into distress, similar to what you have described....

[Hereford]

Thank you for responding. My platy is still hanging on after 15 days of extreme lethargy and as best I can tell, little or nothing to eat. The tank is somewhat overstocked but I have made no additions for two months and the community has prospered with 50% weekly water changes and careful gravel vacuuming. Chemistry is fine. Ph=7.0 (SeaChem) NH3 and N02 = 0 ppm and NO3 varies from 40ppm before weeky water change to 20 ppm after. Awhile back I mounted a campaign to keep NO3 below 10 ppm by changing 25% of the water every other day. Lots of bucket work but no prize-winning effect. Every book I have read seems to indicate that NO3 on the order of 40-80 ppm is acceptable as long as other toxic compounds are at or near zero.

Re. spawning. I don't think this is the case with my platy. Sometime after their arrival I spotted an occasional fry but only one at a time, never in the groups that I have understood platys to birth. One of these fry grew to be almost a centimeter long before disappearing. The other three did not.

Another question about the "Whisper10" filter. The manufacturer's data sheet says to replace the 'Bio-Bag' every thirty days or "...when water flows excessively from the Wonder Tube chamber..." Perplexing! Water had begun to flow here within three days of installation. What is "excessive"? During routine water change yesterday I found the intake side of the bag pretty well choked up. This suprised me because my water is pretty darn clean and the substrate had not yet been disturbed by vacuuming. I decided to try to brush off as much gunk as I could and re-install the bag. Today the bypass overflow spillage was sufficient to compel me to change the bag. I have three of them left. At about a buck each can I afford two filters every week?

I think Wataugachicken gives good advice here and will continue to run the UGF for a few more weeks.

Thanks again to all for your generous response.

-H'fd-