Fish beating itself up / water parameters normal - ???

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LiveMermaid07

Bloody Mary. As in, hand me one.
Jul 7, 2009
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Hi, I have some questions lol.

Ok, so previously I have on occassion noticed that after a water change one or more fish will 'scratch' their gills against something. I thought it odd.

I have read that ammonia will make thier gills burn and cause them to do that, but the ammonia's been reading 0.

More recently, this week, I've noticed that the platy has been just repeatedly thwacking her gills and sides of her stomach against everything (I moved her to the 'time out box' so the only thing she could 'thwack' against was the sponge filter so she didn't hurt herself).
After first noticing this I found some babies so I thought maybe she was just freaking out from her first (?) pregnancy/labor, but after all the babies were born (I think, it had been over a day) she was still doing this.
I had just done a water change prior to this (8gs).

Tank is 29g, 80'F (76-82, my heater blew up earlier), ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate less than 20, ph 6.2 - 6.4, alkilinity 40, hardness 150
Test kits are API liquid for ammonia (tested it this week with some ammonia to make sure it still worked) and Jungle test strips for the rest.


When tank params' are normal (0 ammonia and nitrite) why would fish do this?

I don't see anything attached to their gills.
The gourami, neons, and cory have also been seen to do this but never with as much gusto as this platy. I'm worried for it.

Thanks.
 
allaboutfish said:
take a flashlight and point it at the platy and see if the platy "sparkles" it sounds liknd of like velvet.
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tried it, No sparkling platy

the other fish are iridescent so it's harder to tell. o.O
 
Could be something my molly had. Are they in a tank with plenty of hiding places and plenty of others of their species? Is the water too hot? My molly once did this, she was fine when I turned down the temp a little
 
LiveMermaid07 said:
I've noticed that the platy has been just repeatedly thwacking her gills and sides of her stomach against everything




Tank is 29g, 80'F (76-82, my heater blew up earlier),



The gourami, neons, and cory have also been seen to do this but never with as much gusto as this platy. I'm worried for it.

.
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the heater blew up in the tank? perhaps injury to the fish due to this? the platy may have been closest to the heater when it blew up, and that is why it's symptoms are more pronounced than the other fish?
 
Those paper test strips are trash so you might as well throw them away. It isn't just that they'll give inaccurate readings that may be "close enough" for some folks.... the results could also be completely wrong which helps you not one bit.

As far as the gills are concerned, it could be flukes. More than one fish showing the same symptoms could indicate this as well.
 
Wait, if the heater blew up then there may have been al electrical current in the tank.... could that have damaged the fish's nervous systems?
 
I didn't have the platy when the heater blew, but perhaps 'blew up' is not the correct description lol.

I came home one night from work, um.. May perhaps?, and thier was steam coming out of my room as I headed up strairs... when I got to the tank their was a bunch of steam coming out and the water really HOT, the thermometer read 93 but tht is about the highest it goes. I unplugged the heater - nothing else could have done that - turned off the lights opened the lid and set a fan on top to blow down inside, and turned the airstone up. So now I don't have a heater. Before the sorority died :( I noticed that they seemed healthier at 82 and when I had tried setting it lower for a while about 78, they got sick more often so i had turned it back to 82.
 
Fishfriend1 said:
Could be something my molly had. Are they in a tank with plenty of hiding places and plenty of others of their species? Is the water too hot? My molly once did this, she was fine when I turned down the temp a little
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Lots of places to hide, too many if you ask me lol. Catching her is well, lets just say 'interesting' lol. For the moment she is the only platy.
I try to only get the warmer species of platy (mac something instead of the varietious -sp?- which are subtropical), but maybe she's a mixed? I suppose she would like a cooler temp then maybe..
 
Kashta said:
As far as the gills are concerned, it could be flukes. More than one fish showing the same symptoms could indicate this as well.
Click to expand...

How would treat flukes?
 
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