salt and fry?

W

wrigh003

AC Members
Jun 21, 2005
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I have a 10 gallon planted tank, still fairly new, but one of my platys gave birth right after I brought her home. The fry are all about .5" long now, and they are a hoot to watch.

My question is this- the male platy seems to have mouth fungus or a flexibacter/columnaris infection. I had heard that adding aquarium salt to the tank would help- is this going to be safe for the fry? If I wind up having to medicate the tank, is this going to damage the bacterial colony to the point where water parameters will suffer?

Edit: my cycle appears to be complete, water params are good, temp stable, etc. Plants are going nuts, fish all act healthy, snails growing everywhere, etc.

What would YOU do? I'm about to spend $10 or more on medicine for a $.99 fish, and am trying hard to protect his offspring. Am I nuts?

:D
 
Remove the infected fish. Put him in a hospital tank. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. A $10 10 gallon from WalMart is perfect, but even a plastic tub will do. Move some of the tank water with him, and then add dechlorinated water as necessary. Medicate the water as specified, and place an airstone in the tank/tub if not filtrated. If filtrated, remove any carbon and resin chips. It's a good idea to maintain a tropical temperature as well.

Although some meds claim they're safe for good bacteria, a cautious approach is always the best. Hopefully, the rest of the fish are unaffected by the fungus. If you have a spare tank or tub of at least 10 gallons, it will take one small fish quite a while to pollute it enough to irritate him without filtration. An added benefit of having a spare tank-all those cute fry will grow quickly and overstock your existing tank, not to mention the fish will spawn again and again and again. You're going to need somewhere to keep those extra fish.
 
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Yeah, I have noted that I am going to probably have trouble with the fry overstocking the tank at some point- what the heck do people usually do with them? There appear to be 4, but I noticed last night that there were at least two that are significantly smaller than the others I have noticed up to now- so there may be as many as 6- hard to count the little buggers as they move around. I had initially thought that the larger fish would eat the fry and thus keep the population somewhat in check.

I will locate some stuff to make up a little infirmary tank today at lunch, then. Might as well try to keep the poor little guy well.
 
wrigh003 said:
What would YOU do? I'm about to spend $10 or more on medicine for a $.99 fish, and am trying hard to protect his offspring. Am I nuts?

:D
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Maybe. If it wasn't for my wife and daughters, I would have euthanized my molly at the first sign of trouble. Instead, I took the shotgun approach to medication, spending over $20 on meds for a $2 molly. She's doing well despite still having some columnaris after 10 days of treatment. I'm going to continue treating for now, but if she still has columnaris when I run out of meds, she's a goner.
 
wrigh003 said:
Yeah, I have noted that I am going to probably have trouble with the fry overstocking the tank at some point- what the heck do people usually do with them?
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Welcome to the world of livebearers. I'm lucky that I have a local fish store (LFS) that will give me store credit for full retail price and can handle 150+ mollies a month. Other stores in the area give store credit for half of the retail price, if at all. If nothing else, you can give them to a store, or give them away on Aquabid. Euthanasia is a last resort, but is preferred to overcrowding.
 
DirkW said:
Welcome to the world of livebearers. I'm lucky that I have a local fish store (LFS) that will give me store credit for full retail price and can handle 150+ mollies a month.
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Wow. I presume that yours is a non-chain store? I haven't found a LFS that deals in freshwater stuff yet- there's a pretty cool place that farms their own coral and all that a few miles away, but no dice on the freshwater. I doubt Petco or Petsmart will give credit at all, or even take the things.

Fortunately/unfortunately, my tank was/is understocked at the moment, so a few more fish won't hurt. I started with a pair of silver mollies and a pair of red wag platies. The platies must have been in worse shape than I thought when I got them, the female died after giving birth and the make is the one having trouble now- the mollies are perky and look fine.

As far as the fry go, maybe I'll just try to see what gender I have the most of and keep only that one- who knows. I'll look into that aquabid thing- never heard of it.
 
I woudln't worry about fry and salt too much. My old female platy always seems to end up in the QT tank that gets infested with ich. I have to keep her separated from her man, or else it'll get worse.

Anyhow, she's given birth three times in QT with 1tsp salt per gallon, and 2 times no salt. All the fry that don't get eaten or sucked into the filter do fine and go through the ich treatment. None have ever died from it. Unfortunately. She just gave birth again three days ago. Two in the QT tank that I've seen. That makes 11 platy fry and I just noticed that Dad has impregnated two of his little daughters in my 36g. Does it ever end? :)

I think I'll see if my LFS wants some platies for free.

Roan
 
Wow, I don't have any livebearers, but I do have a new brood of Neolamprologus Brichardi. Looks like about 2 dozen fry. Those in addition to the 5 dozen or so Haplochromis Obliquidens in a nursery tank. Then there are the two Peacocks holding mouthfuls right now too.....

Yep.....it just goes on and on.
 
Well, I went and blew some money today, but that's what hobbies are for, right? Anyway, got a little tank for QT/hospital use- not planning to leave it set up anywhere, really. Mightmake a pico-reef out of it one day, but that's down the line.

In the meantime, Red platy male #1 is in the little tank, swimming in some malachite green- tinted water, with some salt for kicks. We'll see in a day or two how it treats him/ if it works at all.

The fry are getting bolder and bolder- swimming out in the open a good part of the time now. Neato.
 
wrigh003 said:
The fry are getting bolder and bolder- swimming out in the open a good part of the time now. Neato.
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Just a note: my oldest fry are about 3/4" in size and daddy had his way with them. So, watch out for a population explosion when you are not expecting it :)

Roan
 
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