# Platy Fish Scraping/Flashing Normal?



## LB79 (Nov 18, 2011)

If there were ever healthy-looking platies, yours take the prize. Fish get itches. If seen all sorts of fish do that. Discus, apistogramma, otocinclus, plecos, you name it. I think your fish are fine. They certainly look healthy.


----------



## basskitkays (Feb 19, 2012)

I'm going to agree that they look quite healthy. Something I have noticed with my few, was when they were in a tank that was....WELL stocked, if I missed a weekly water change... by about day 12 or 13 they would start rubbing,itching, whatever you wanna call it. Nobody else would show any signs of any discomfort, or anything like that....Then i do my water change, and BOOM!!! happy (and usually horny) platies once again...
(of course they're a bit spoiled to 35-50% water changes, generally weekly)
My camera phone isn't fast enough or i'd have a picture of them in their new digs happy as can be....


----------



## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Maybe it coincides with water changes, hoping they just get itchy as LB said . I'm a little paranoid since these platies have been in the tank on day 0 (newbie mistake) and lived through several nitrite spikes before the tank finally settled. I'll have to keep better notes next time I do w/c or dose ferts. I don't do w/c often, the plants suck up so much and with evaporation I lose about 0.5-1" of water every day. Just mostly do every-other-day topoffs. 

Newbie fishkeeper and don't know what to look for (Google images don't help much). Just wanted to get a second eye since I have more fish coming for the tank, thanks for the reassurance!


----------



## wendyjo (Feb 20, 2009)

Velvet can be hard to see - but yeah those fish look nice in my opinion. If you'd like to check for velvet shine a flashlight on the fish. Velvet will look almost like a gold sheen on them. But I think your fish look fine and your idea of keeping a log to see if the scratching corresponds to water changes or the addition of ferts is a great idea.


----------



## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

I did the flash light test, but it's very hard to tell since the platies are naturally gold (a little mickey-mouse mixed I think) near the top. From Google images they seem to look like gold-rusty-specs, like tiny-yellow-ich?


----------



## wendyjo (Feb 20, 2009)

Yes I think that's right (never have seen it in person, thank goodness), but I think where as you could think of ick as being a fish sprinkled with grains of salt, you would think of velvet as more of a fish being covered in gold power.


----------



## Livielooloviebug (Aug 22, 2013)

I love love love your fish they are so pretty and adorable I wish I had some like that!!! Also your tank is really pretty kinda like a jungle!:fish::icon_smil:tongue::icon_smil:icon_smil


----------

