Strange hernia on platy?

[Kat_Rigel]

I have a platy that has a weird hernia or prolapse or something, I'm looking to see if anyone has seen this before.

I have had the platy for about 5-6 weeks. It was added to my main 55gal tank after a 4 week quarantine, along with one male. I was pretty confident that they would breed in the time they were in quarantine, and I planned to keep an eye out for the female getting large and close to birth.

Today it looked like she was "squaring off" and I was excited to see that something was kind of emerging from the anal area. I fished her out and placed her in a breeder box, but when I took a closer look, you can see that it is NOT normal. I can't tell if it is a prolapse, a hernia, botched birth, or what. I think I can see an egg on one side (yes, I know platies are livebearera, but they still have the sperm/egg basics.) It might indicate that there was something wrong with the development of the fry in gestation. Her behavior has been totally normal and she does not appear to be in distress in any way. 

I haven't bred platies before but I know that it's been about 2 hours with no signs of babies anywhere. Has anyone else come across this? Hoping to save the fish of course, but I would never be able to use her for breeding... unless this is just some normal thing that I'm unfamiliar with. Could be a trauma too, I guess.

Tank parameters:

Ammonia:0, nitrite:0, nitrate: 20ppm, kh:17, gh: 18, ph:7.8, temp: 79.1F. No meds given during quarantine. 55gal planted with guppies, pencilfish, danios, cloud mountain minnows, cories, assassin snails, mystery snails, cherry shrimp

Check out the pics. Very interested to hear what you guys have to say. For now I have her isolated and I'll wait and see if anything else happens.

 

[quikv6]

I have had a livebearer with an intestinal prolapse (Although from your pics I don't believe that is what your platy is experiencing....I think yours may be birthing related).

In my case, a few 15 minute epsom salt bath sessions seemed to really help, and within a few days the prolapse was reabsorbed into the body. The fish has been fine ever since, knock on wood.

I have read that the breeder box can be highly stressful, and can lead to problems. I have always allowed my fish to drop their fry in the main tank, so I don't have any experience with the breeder boxes.

Edited February 21, 2021 by quikv6

[Kat_Rigel]

Well sad update, the fish is really doing poorly and I honestly don't hold much hope that it will recover. I agree that it appears to to a birth related issue; the prolapse has increased in size and the fish is doing that "I'm almost dead floating at the top" thing. 😕 I think I'm going to euthanize- hate to see unnecessary suffering and I don't think we'll be getting any babies out of this. If anyone has experienced this, please let me know. Just curious. I don't think anything could have been done to prevent this.