My platys died...what happened?

[fishfanatic]

I recently bought 2 orange and black platys, after about 5 days I found the male dead and 2 days later I noticed the female very listless and lying on the bottom or staying in the top corner of the tank. After doing a feeding tonight the female platy started to go crazy!! it was swimming super erratically all over the tank, crashing into things, getting caught up in the plants, practically flying out of the water! then it just died :scry:
My water parameters are where they should be, just did a water change today,
All my other fish are fine....What could of that been?....It was the weirdest thing i've seen!

[Kaz]

How big is the tank? What other fish were in there? did you notice anything else about them?

[robflanker]

first thing that springs to my mind is whether the tank was cycled or not

[Kaz]

Water parameters are apparently fine though.

What are the water parameters? PH, Ammonia, etc.

I trust that they're fine but Rob raises a good point.

[robflanker]

If one is using testing strips its unreliable.

Plus the definition of fine is variable. If one gets poor knowledge from a LFS, it could realy be very very off

[Kaz]

Hence the question about the water parameters.

Please decribe your tank in as much detail as possible , BTW.

[thrakuarium]

Yes we do need more info in order to help you. Platy's are normally very hardy. Almost as hardy as danios. I'm also curious as to what other fish are in the tank along with the usual water readings and info on how long the tank has been running. Anything you can give us will help.

[fishfanatic]

I have a 33 gallon tank thats been cycled, been running almost 3 months, currently have 4 danios, red tailed shark, 6 neons all doing great!
parameters: ammonia 0 ppm, nitrate15-20, nitrite .05 (using test stips...hard to tell exactly) PH 7.3

[robflanker]

Number 1: ditch the test strips for a liquid testing kit, far far far more accurate.

You shouldnt have -ites unless you are undergoing a minicycle

Id get liquid testing, and re-check it. The strips are so bad that we'd be giving advice based on terrible data

[Kaz]

My guess would be some sort of disease.

That rainbow shark shouldn't be in there, BTW, but that would have no effect on the platies.

[thrakuarium]

With those fish I'm inclined to agree w/ Kaz that maybe the platys were sick before you got them. Keep an eye on the rest of your fish in case they start acting ill and keep the meds handy. The only reason I could see a mini-cycle is if some of the fish you still have were a recent addition and the bioload was rebalancing. If you test with liquid and still show nitrite you might want to add a bacteria booster to help the tank rebalance. It may just be bad strips though, because your neons are fine and they can be cycle sensitive.