Platy Had Stressful Birth??

[PlatyLady]

hello all,
I posted this question in the livebearer section a few days ago, but I thought maybe someone here could give me a more definative answer. I had a Twin Goldbar Platy drop her first batch of fry after a five to six week gestation. I only saw her actually have two, one of which I believe is hiding somewhere in the tank, the other was born dead, but I think she had more than that which I did not see. About a day or so after she dropped, she suddenly became much less active, her spine looks very crooked (it looks really bad nearer her head, but straightens out near the tail), and she looks grotesquely thin through the belly and around her gills. She eats a little, but mostly she's been spitting the food out, and she just rests on the gravel most of the time. She doesn't seem to be gasping for air, but her gill movements are more pronounced since she's so thin in the face. The thing is, I had a platy a few months ago drop her first batch of fry, come down with the same general symptoms (except her scales started to "pinecone" a bit near the end) and die. Can anyone tell me what's going on? It is something I'm doing or not doing?

[T4987]

tell me a little more about it. Did you buy it pregnant? Did you move it to any other tanks during its gestation period? Are any fish harassing it?

[PlatyLady]

I don't think she was pregnant when I bought her, but I believe she was in a tank with males, so it's possible that she was. I think she got pregnant by one of my males because she was pregnant for a good five weeks. She did get moved later in her pregnancy, as I had a leak in my acrylic 10g and had to replace it with a new tank. She was in a cycled tank during the time it took to set up the new tank (which got all the original water that could be salvaged and the old filter), but only for a few hours. None of the other fish are harrassing her, actually I think that they might be trying to protect her/keep her company, as they sort of sit with her on the bottom for a minute or so at a time. I'm looking at her right now, and it seems as if her tail is a little bit split-not sure if it's fin rot or not, but I'll start treating her ASAP. Can you make anything of this?

[PlatyLady]

here are tank readings, if it helps:
pH: about 6.4 (unusually low-source of problem??)
nitrIte: 0ppm
ammonia: between 0ppm and .25ppm (maybe it's my light, but it looks like it's in between 0 and .25)
nitrAte: between 10ppm and 20ppm
I also did about a 40% water change today. Hope this helps a diagnosis...

[T4987]

Is it only your females that have problems or do your males act strange as well?

[PlatyLady]

I've never had a problem with males ever. In fact, I've only ever had three over the last year: the one I have now, one of his offspring, who was recently sold, and one I had for a few weeks, but he died in an Ich outbreak quite some time ago. He's certainly got his share of character quirks (some of which he shares with his offspring, like playing in the bubbles and trying to "swim upstream" with the water output of the filter), but never had any health problems.

[T4987]

Look up some ways to raise your ph I read on a fish disease site it can do some nasty things to fish. I think 7.0 is about where it should be.

[doggydad38]

Sounds to me like she had some kind of genetic weakness. You will find this happens alot with highly inbred livebearers. Outcrossing to an unrelated line will usually take care of the problem. Since your males seem unaffected, breed them out to another line and see what happens with the fry.
Tony

[PlatyLady]

thanks for the suggesstions, everyone. unfortunately she's swimming in the fishbowl in the sky now. I noticed something strange when I was taking her out of the tank for her "burial at sea", her pupils were extremely dilated. I mean, there was more black in her eyes than there was blue/white. I've never seen this happen with a fish before, but does it make any sense to anyone else?