"teri" wrote in message
...

my platy and 1 or 2 of her babys are hanging at the top of the tank
seemingly gasping for air but i have only recently put a new airstone
in. my other fish are fine eating normally i am giving the tank a
routene clean today, but, i had some fancy guppys they started doing
this and then died, i want to save this lot because i was loosing 1 a
day with the guppys, i dont want to loose the platys because they are
my favourite fish and they are so friendly aswell
Hi Danny. My platies do that a lot too, I am thinking it is just
something they like to do. They will hang up there for what seems
like a long time, but also then hang around down in the water, and
swim around. They have been doing it for the four months I have had
the tank set up. So it could be nothing to worry about. I have six
types of fish in the tank, and none of the others ever do that, just
the platies. If you watch closely you can see air bubbles coming out
of their gills when they are up there. I have month-or-so old platy
fry also, so I would think if there was a problem with the water they
would not be growing like weeds.
Teri

Good point. That's another possibility. Mollies are known to eat the
protein layer which naturally occurs along the water's surface, and
Mollies are very closely related to Guppies. I wouldn't be surprised if
Platys and Swordtails do the same thing.

One of the ways to distinguish is to watch the fish to get their pattern.
Low O2 is worse in the early morning, or when the tank water is at its
warmest. Also low O2 tends to affect fish by species and size, at mostly
the same time. If your water parameters check out, they are eating and
colourful, the abdomen has the proper shape, and their respiration seems
normal, then surface 'snacking' would be a very good possibility. I hope
that's it.
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