Crooked Spine Platy

Question
I have a 50-gallon tank with a variety of tropical fish. My concern is one of my mickey mouse platies. I have a handful of these in my tank, but one of the smaller ones has always had a crooked tail like a check-mark from the side view, and if you look at him from the top you can see that it curves like an "S". For the past week or so, he has trouble swimming and lays low most of the time on the rocks. During feeding time, he barely tries to get food and I have to drop some "first bites" powder in a cup of tank water and pour it right over where he is. In the past, he could swim just fine with his crooked tail, and energetically too. He seems to be in pain now that he has gotten a little larger, and requires a lot of effort to jump and reach food. I'm worried about him, is there anything I can do? Is it a crooked spine, or could it be a tumor?

Answer
Dear Andrea,
I'm sorry to hear about the poor platy.
Sounds like he has a crooked spine which can be due to genetics or possibly even a lack of vitamin C. Unfortunately there is very little you can do for him. I've had plenty of fish like this in the past. It usually showed up as just from genetics and the fish would usually do well up to a point and they might start to suffer or get weak. Many aquarists would advise euthanizing the poor guy. But if you think he may have a chance of living a decent life, then is there anyway you could move him to a smaller tank where he wouldn't have to swim so hard to get food or just to move around? Maybe a small tank with lots of plants to rest on when he needs to and some company of a few other platies (no males allowed though if the fish with the crooked spine is a female)

If eventually the poor little platy looks like he isn't doing well at all, cannot swim very well or has little interest in food...It may be best to euthanise the poor guy. The best most humane method is to use clove oil..It's a natural anesthesia used for sedating fish like koi for treatments and-- when overdosed, it can be used to euthanize fish. You can read more about this here-
http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/EuthanizingFish.html

I'm really sorry. It's hard to know the right thing to do when you have fish that are in such a bad situation.

Only my very best wishes,
Karen~