Platty scales are sticking out (photo)

Dropsy, Pineconing, Scales sticking out on platty.

I am not sure what is wrong with this poor guy in my tank. His scales are starting to stick out. Anybody know what is happening to him?

UPDATE
==========================

Thanks for the suggestions everybody. The fish did not live but wanted to post the information everybody gave me in the first post so those in the future can have access to the information.

This fish ended up having Dropsy or "Pineconing". It is highly fatal. More info at

"Wobbles" battles Dropsy


and please read the responses below.

 

It looks like dropsy.
That's hard to treat and is usually fatal. I lost a dwarf gourami to it.

I hope it gets better. Good luck!

 

That is called pineconing and as mentioned above, it is usually a sign of Dropsy which as also mentioned doesn't have a very high survival rate.

 

Your fish has a very bad case of dropsy. It is a bacterial disease that causes the fish to take on water due to kidney failure.

One of the more common causes is high nitrates. Do you know what your current water parameters are?

As the first line of treatment for any disease is clean, pristine water, I recommend doing 30-50% daily water changes for a week or two. If your fish is still fighting the disease, but not improving, you could try tetracycline.

While this disease is not contagious, you may want to move the sick fish to a QT tank to better keep up on the water changes and to reduce your cost of the medicine, if you opt to try it.

 

Good morning,

I have moved your thread to the Freshwater Fish Disease section of the forum.

Links on Dropsy:





Best wishes for your fish.

Ken

 

Abdominal dropsy. Not necessarily caused by a bacterial infection, but rather a loss of osmotic regulation within the fish. The cause of that could be any number of things from bacteria to salt content of the water.

Honestly, at that stage, I would euthanize. Once a fish has started to pinecone, it's 95% fatal in my experience. If you can catch it when they're just starting to swell, you have a better chance, but once they pinecone, it's likely they are in full renal failure.

 

Gosh, I'm so sorry.
I would also euthanize at that stage.

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/humane-method-of-euthanasia-for-sick-fish.48332/

 

oh my this is so serious I wish ur fish gets well without any troubles. good luck

 

He died about 2 days after I posted the message. RIP.

A few weeks ago I went out of town and unreachable most of the time and my 4 year old son decided to feed the fish and dumped the whole container in. My wife saw it the next day and 4 of platies were dead with huge stomachs so I am guessing they ate to much.

I was not reachable and she cleaned the tank and since she has never done it before she cleaned both filters in tap water not knowing about all the bacteria. I was hoping there would be enough bacteria on the gravel and a large rock we have in the tank.

It is a Fluval U4 Underwater Filter and I only replace one side at a time and of course never use tap water to keep all the good bacteria.

I will start using my test kit everyday and doing frequent water changes.

 

Best of luck! Hopefully your tank will re-cycle quickly.

 

Sorry to hear about your troubles. When I leave town and have friends feed the fish, I use one of those weekly pill boxes you buy at the pharmacy. I then pre fill each day with the amount of food I want fed. This takes the guess work out and would allow your 4 year old to just dump in the one days worth of food from the pill box. Good Luck.