Hi there,
last saturday one of my platy's was attacked and lost all its scales and had a white buldge out its Left hand side. My partner took it out of the main tank and put it in a bowl with some blue tonic solution, and it didnt die until monday morning when the bulge finally popped out its side. (my partner felt mean killing it so left it hoping it could heal itself up)

The pet shop guy who we get our fish from said was most likely to be our Rainbow Shark (who fin nipped everyone and chased them all around the tank) that did it.

We re-homed the shark into their care on tuesday and since then all the other fish had been very happy and no more fin nipping....
I brought two more Platy's to keep my last one company as he was looking lonely.

Until this morning everyone was happy.....

now Yet another platy is dead.
This time it has all its scales still but has lost it's tail completely.


could it have been that the 2 platy's I brought did it to it (one was male one was female and i'm not 100% sure of the gender of the now deceased platy but the first one was female)
or which one of my other fish could have done it?
I thought the angel fish maybe as it headbutts the silver dollar pretty often but even it was fin nipped by the Rainbow shark so I dont think it is capable of it as the most it does is headbutt's

I am so stumped as to who, and partly why...Its not like they are short of space

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215Litre/57gallon tank with:
13x Neon Tetra, 4x Glass Bloodfin Tetra, 2x Yellow Apple snails, 1x Platy, 1x Silver Dollar, 1x male Bristlenose Cat, 1x Pleco (currently 2" long) & 1x albino Corydora

and a 22Litre/6gallon tank with 2x angelfish fry (B1 and B2), the sole survivors of over 200 eggs.

Apple Snails will eat anything: plants, dead fish, anything and everything. I suspect your platy died then was partially eaten by one or both of your snails.

And I concur with the theory of the rainbow shark biting some of your slower moving fish. Tetras, platys are harmonious together. The South East Asian sharks (rainbow, red-tailed sharks, bala sharks and black sharks) should not be placed in the same tanks as South American platys and tetras. Platys and tetras just don't have the speed to avoid getting eaten by the sharks.

Try gouramis, rainbow fish and if you want smaller fish, barbs and danios are a perfect fit.

See: Rainbow shark - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia BTW, Great freshwater fish.

oh thanks, it was floating at the top above where the snail was sitting.

I'm so confused as to who is still fin nipping though.
the silver dollar and angelfish both have fresh damage to their little fins on thier sides but i'm thinking maybe they are doing that when headbutting each other. they dont leave each other alone and despite a big tank still hang out near each other.

I put in an extra dose of Stress Coat Stress Coat® - API to try help it all heal up as its worked in the past for fixing up the nips that the shark did

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215Litre/57gallon tank with:
13x Neon Tetra, 4x Glass Bloodfin Tetra, 2x Yellow Apple snails, 1x Platy, 1x Silver Dollar, 1x male Bristlenose Cat, 1x Pleco (currently 2" long) & 1x albino Corydora

and a 22Litre/6gallon tank with 2x angelfish fry (B1 and B2), the sole survivors of over 200 eggs.

Well your bloodfin tetras are nippers which may have stressed the platy causing it to die but any fish or snail in the tank will take bites out of it which is the way of life. They are probably nipping at the angel and silver dollar.

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SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY YEARS, NOT MONTHS!!!
220 Tank build
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wow,unbelieveble story.Why you do not sit there to search which fish did the bad thing?

oh,you can use a camara to record down the whole process at night when you go to sleep.

Have never seen the glass bloodfins do any nipping. they are shy and hang out in a school with the neons.

the extent of all I have seen going on is the bristlenose scooting around after the cory's and the Angelfish and Silverdollar headbutting each other. and neither of them go after any other fish - just each other

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215Litre/57gallon tank with:
13x Neon Tetra, 4x Glass Bloodfin Tetra, 2x Yellow Apple snails, 1x Platy, 1x Silver Dollar, 1x male Bristlenose Cat, 1x Pleco (currently 2" long) & 1x albino Corydora

and a 22Litre/6gallon tank with 2x angelfish fry (B1 and B2), the sole survivors of over 200 eggs.

That Silver Dollar is quite large. That would be my guess. Your tank size is pushing it for him.