Worried- Red Wag Platy sitting on the bottom

La Reina

I went out yesterday and boutt 4 red wag platies and put them in my 20 gallon freshwater. Thing were all fine and dandy. Now, this morning, one of the platies is just sitting on the bottom. He'll drift to another spot and once again just sit there. There is no sign of disease that I can see, and all my other fish are fine. I checked the water this morning, and nitrates and nitrites are 0, the pH is 8.0 (Got hard water here in Calgary), and the Ammonia is up to .50 ppm (Will do a water change this evening to remedy that.).

Anybody know what's going on with this little fish?

Twistersmom

It could just be stressed from the move and exposure to ammonia. See if the water change helps.
Is this a new tank? You might want to use a water conditioner such as Prime, that will help detoxify ammonia and nitrites. Test daily, try to keep both under .25 ppm through water changes.

bearwithfish

keep up with water changes daily it will help

La Reina

The fish died. :( My family and I were watching when it happened: spazz, sink. Spazz, sink. Spazz, sink, twitch, dead.

Was rather graphic.

I did a 25% water change, and that dropped the ammonia down to .25 ppm. I'll do one again tomorrow.

bearwithfish

keep us posted and we are hoping all goes well..........

La Reina

My other fish seem perfectly fine. I'm definately watching the ammonia.

Funny thing is, I've never had any trace of nitrates or nitrites.

Twistersmom

How long has the tank been setup?
Sounds like the tank is just beginning to cycle. Next will come nitrites, then nitrates.

La Reina

The tank ran for 4 days fishless. I added 6 danios, waited a week (One daino died in a wierd tank cleaning incident), then added the 4 platies, 1 mystery snail, and one more Danio to replace the one that died. So that's 11 days from start to now. There wasn't an ammonia spike until the day I bought all the other fish. I blame the ammonia on over feeding, you wouldn't beleive the crud that came off the bottom when I cleaned the tank.

bearwithfish

hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmm sounds like a little to fast not enough time for the tank to cycle ....

La Reina

Ah well. I'm watching the water, got buckets out to change the water in the morning.