Greetings all! I'm really hoping the collecting knowledge & experience here can figure this out. I'm stumped
The basics: these are "green lightning" platies. I have four in a 10 gal hospital tank, separated when I realized they had a problem. It started with a small black spot on top of one's head and I started researching it. Soon after I noticed all four of these same type (no other platies in main tank) were looking ratty and I moved them out. That was weeks ago and things have slowly gotten worse. I have tried treating with Melafix first, then added Pimafix to a daily alternating schedule, no improvement. I later noticed a few little while spots on one tail and then switched to ich-x for several days now. They've all four just continued getting worse and now there are black spots on one or two of the others, one having very pale and scraggly looking scales with red showing through...
My first question is if they can even be saved. Their activity and appetite are unchanged and totally normal still, which made getting any useful pics difficult. I'm attaching the best I could manage.
I've regularly checked water params and all are normal, and did a 50% water change last night as part of the ich-x instructions. Here's the current... very soft water params. Seems I'd forgotten to check more than the API master kit does. Will start trying to figure out how much SeaChem Equilibrium the tank needs. I have a RO/DI system for tank water.
Tank size: 10 gal
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 0
Hardness: 0-25ppm
Buffer: 40ppm
PH: 6.8
Now that I see the water is so soft, could that be hurting or preventing their recovery?
Any recommendations on how to adjust the hardness/buffer/ph without doing a chemistry experiment? I tried the Equilibrium in the main tank once and the hardness went to what I wanted (I think) but the PH shot to 8.4+, which I did not expect... I've let that come back down on it's own from water changes.
Hopefully I've included enough info. Any and all help is appreciated.
