Basic problem: My yellow platy Bop is looking sunken in the tummy area.

I have a 6 gallon marineland eclipse system that pushes 75 gph. It holds 2 platies, four fake plants, a terra cotta pot, and 5 pounds of gravel. Heated to a temp between 75-78. (For some reason, if I set my heater any higher, it goes WAY up, so I'm happy with that.)

I feed my kiddos marineland's tropical fish food, which sinks.

I tested my water with the aquarium pharmaceuticals master test kit three times today.

Before the water change--
Ammonia: Slightly above zero, probably due to the extra food in the tank left by my efforts to get Bop to eat.
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10
pH: 7.9

After the 2 gallon water change, during which I removed all leftover food--
Ammonia: .25
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5ish
pH: 8.0

Because of discrepancies in the two readings, I did the following tests on my tap water--
Ammonia: .5
pH: 8.4

Aside from these two odd readings, which I have not gotten on my tap before (tap is usually ammonia-free and pH 8.0), my water quality has been excellent, as my fishies are not dirty and there are only two of them. In fact, I don't suspect my water at all, and I'm going to start a separate thread in the water chemistry section to deal with the recent developments. However, I have the info, so I thought I'd share it anyway.

I think the reason Bop is so skinny is because she's slow. Well, slower than Beyonce, anyways. She's had maybe 2 skinny moments before, but she looked fine after a few days. This is the third time, however, and I'm beginning to get a little worried. Beyonce, my other platy, beats her to the food. I usually combat this by dropping two separate piles of food, but it seems as though recently Beyonce is just being mean about it, and she goes after whichever piece of food Bop wants, though there are several more in the tank. Bop has also stopped foraging around the bottom of the tank, which is how she got most of her food before. The food sinks fast because I have a strong filter and a big airstone, so there is no surface tension in my tank.

Any suggestions on what I can do? I've tried holding Beyonce to the side of the tank in my net, but that just seemed to stress her out, and Bop only got one piece of food before it was all on the ground, and, as stated above, she doesn't dig around anymore, for unexplained reasons.

My fishies are juveniles, so I expect them to change a bit as they grow, but I didn't expect Bop to just lose the ability to survive...

Maybe it is stressed out or maybe he can't find the food because it sinks too fast. I feed my guppies flake food and they aren't skinny at all. Well I wish you the best of luck with the fish!

There is a disease commonly referred to as "wasting disease". I am not sure if there is any treatment for this. I would do a search on go0gle, something like "wasting disease livebearer" and see if you can come up with more information and see if the description fits your platys symptoms.

I hope this helps and please let me know what you find out.

The treatment for wasting disease is something called flubendazole. Anyone know anything about it? Where to get it, what it is, how to use it...?

try offering frosen brine shrimp or blood worms... could be stress, could be he's picky. After moving in with the gobies, my two mollies wouldnt touch a flake if it were the last meal on earth!

Bop died today. She looked okay (she's been on the skinny side for a month now) this morning, but when I came home from work her stomach was completely sunken in and she was just lying there on the gravel. She only breathed a couple more times after I found her.

I'm not so sad about this one, though... I kind of thought this would get the best of her eventually, so I had time to get used to it. Not that it's not still a bit depressing, but it was more of a shock when Carrot died because she was perfectly healthy.

That leaves Beyonce, for the second time, as the sole survivor in the tank. I'm not sure I want to get her any more friends. Is that cruel?

Sorry about your fishy *sniff* I think 2 of my female guppies may have had the same problem. The first one was extrememly scrawny after birth, even more than she should have been. My last female guppy I had did the same thing. After her batch of fry, she did fine for awhile though but slowly got skinnier and skinnier and finally died not even 2 weeks ago

Sorry that Bop didn't make it. I don't think it's cruel that you don't want to get tankmates for Beyonce-I'd probably hold off myself. It stinks when you lose fish.

Yeah, what devs said... I feel so bad for my little male guppy right now. He's had a very rough time in my tank while it cycled and has no friends I felt bad for him, but Wal-mart is about the only place of 3 stores that ever has male guppies in stock and all but 2 of my guppies I've ever had have made it for longer than a full months time from there

Thanks guys--I haven't seen much of Beyonce because I've been a work all day every day this week, but from what I've noticed she doesn't seem to be too heartbroken about it. She was always the leader anyway, and kinda liked to be out alone in front. Maybe she'll be alright as an only fish.

I am so sorry about Bop I am glad to hear that Beyonce is doing well, though.