# Female platy rubbing against at plant?



## lann (May 25, 2009)

Her body and fins do not show any white spots yet she is rubbing herself against a plant as if it had ick. I have 4 other platies in the planted 20 gallon tank and she looks just as healthy as the rest of them. Ammonia and Nitrite is 0ppm and Nitrate is under 20 ppm. I added about 3 oz of java moss and few other plants and changed 10% of the water. Few hours later, I noticed that one of my female platy started rubbing against a plant. I also have a couple of shrimps and snails in the tank. I however do not have a quarantine tank but I will set up one soon though. She only rubs on the same plant(dracena sanderiana, which I added to the tank today)


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## JIM (May 27, 2009)

*could be just a skin irritation*, *I would recommend a little salt but the plants wouldnt like it im afraid.*


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## Chickadee (Nov 15, 2008)

Most parasites will leave the fish if you boost the temperature in the tank up to 82 degrees slowly and leave it there for about 2 weeks and it will not kill your plants. The important thing is not to let the temperature fall as then the parasites will settle back on the fish and you will have the problem all over again.

They stay free floating in the water through a whole life cycle and cannot survive without a host fish and will die off. Then at the end of that time you do a major gravel vacuuming and water change of about 40 to 50 percent of the water and slowly return your water back to about 78 to 80 degrees.

Move your temperature either up or down about a degree every other hour until you get it where you want it in a small tank, in a tank larger than 5 gallons it will take about 3 hours to get the temperature to move so don't move it again for about 4 hours. (1 degree every 4 hours).

Rose


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