Hi Jakiebabie,
First of all I would like to say thank you for supporting me. As a matter of fact I had this aquarium for over a month now. It was a gift from my boyfriend. I'm gonna tell you the entire story but please bear with me as I myself felt devastated with my own faults. As I was saying, my boyfriend bought me this 10 gal aquarium last month together with the interior medium filter system, small airpump that comes with the aquarium box, tetramin flakes, tetra dechlorination & conditioner, and an automatic heater. I had no idea with all these stuff so I learned everything from "Mr. Google", from those livebearers who also had experiences they share online. What I did was, I washed all the accessories and pebbles, set up the aquarium and walah! done in an hour. put 10 ml dechlorination and waited for 24 hours till my fish arrives. the following day, my boyfriend brought these cute little fishes, 4 platys to be exact. 2 males and 2 females coz that's what the petshop only allowed him to have. I fed them not knowing excitedly that I can't over feed them. I noticed that they swim shimmily, like they having trouble swimming to the surface. so again, I googled and found out they were constipated. the following day, one female died and I was so sad and even cried. Still, unaware my few days later, exactly 8 days. After I cleaned "the entire aquarium", I did and entire water change, transfered all my fish in a basin, scraped all the slime in my decors (aawww..! forgive me with this one as I'm not really aware what I was doing) My boyfriend brought me another "6" of the platys. So, there were 9 in total. There were al excited and running around and playing. I was so happy seeing them enjoying and I didn't have any idea that one of them was pregnant and on the day the platys arrived, she was giving birth I wonder why I kept on seeing a fry. when I thought it was just only one that I'm seeing. so after a week, I did all the same thing with my aquarium (coz I'm stupid...). after I had my aquarium cleaned. I put dechlorination in it, and this time I'm not quite sure if I put the right amount which is 10ml. again, my platys were happy (I thought) coz there water was cleaned until the next day. I was wondering why few of them have there fins turning into white, like ash covered. I was worried, But I thought it was just natural. I smelled the water and it doesn't smell dry, instead it smelled fishy. As i checked on the others, they were all on top of the water where my oxygen is placed, I thought they were just playing with the bubbles...(sigh!). I didn't know that they're starting to get poisoned because they eat whenever I feed them. the following day was horrible. my water was foggy, my platys were acting really strange and weak, there's one already dead, most of them already coated with white thingy. some were just staying at the bottom of the aquarium and not moving, one was staying on top of my plastic palm tree ornament (like she doesn't wanna stay at the bottom). and only one was a bit active and her entire body wasn't yet coated with white but just her fins. So, I hurriedly jumped into my laptop and again checked on Mr. google why my platys were like that. I was shocked when I learned that my platys were poisoned. than I remembered only putting 5ml during my water change. and that I wasn't supposed to clean the entire aquarium if not really needed. those, and lots of ideas flowed into my mind, i was educated at some point. So, what I did was I hurriedly transferred my only few remaining fish in a pail with water dechlorified and with oxygen in it. cleaned the entire aquarium and put 10ml dechlorination. After that, I immediately transport my surviving platys from the pail back to the aquarium but unfortunately, only two females made it, but from that two the other one died at 12MN as I kept on monitoring their conditions. I slept in when I saw the other female hid from one of the house's room and stayed there. I thought she was traumatized with what happened so i left her be. the following day i checked on her. she was still in the house not coming out. I tried to give her flakes but still shed wouldn't come out. maybe, she was just trying to recover from the incident. again I let her be. I smelled the water and it smells dry now, unlike before it smells awful and fishy. I checked the water's clearness, it looks good too. The next day, my only one platy came out of the house and looks like she's ready to eat. I gave her few flakes and she did. I was so happy that everything went fine. I waited few days more and checked if she's doing fine. And she's in full recovery although sad because she's alone. I tried to grab another one for her so she wouldn't be sad anymore but the petshop won't let me and even advised me to let the aquarium breath for a week before I grab another. I waited for a week, but noticed that "loney", that's what I called her ever since she was the only one left, was pregnant! but, not sure till yesterday. after a week which was 5 days ago, My boyfriend brought me 3 platys 2 males and one female which not sure what kind of female platy breed this is... Right now they're still doing fine. yesterday, I set up my small breeding box because I noticed that her belly is getting huge and she keeps herself away from the others plus she hides behind the filter. also, she was irritated with the male platys chasing her. I put her in there for a while. I brought another female platy just to divert the males attention. As I woke up this morning, I saw a fry at the bottom of the breeding box, it was so tiny that i barely know if it's alive or dead so I waited... It was a long but exciting wait before loney gave another birth to two fries.. and to my dismay I was shocked that she ATE her fries!!!! huhuhu I felt like crying!!!! my heart was pounding with anger!!!! wwaaahhh!!! my babies!!! i immediately grabbed some leaves from my ornament and put it underneath loney so the next time she give birth she couldn't eat it. And there she give birth to four more and they're not moving... they were at the bottom of the breeding box now and they're like just lying there... not moving at all!!! not sure if should I through them out or what? huhuhu what shall I do? they're still in the breeding box now.. should i leave them there for couple more days? i dunno what to do with them.. I'm frustrated right now....
I dunno if my other female was pregnant, I was trying to attach her picture but it won't let me. Plus, I don't have testing kit still because it's expensive. all I have was thermometer right now. gladly it's in 80 degrees. I'm gonna do a vacuuming later which I also learned from the petshop. huh! good thing I'm learning now...
I hope you can still share your ideas with me on what to do...
Thank you.. hope to hear from you soon!
