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Sick male guppy 9/10/17
Guppy Disease 2/18/16
Guppies....sick
10/19/13 Guppy troubles... sys., hlth. 3/4/10 Sick guppies. Columnaris? 10/17/07 Hi, We have had quite a few guppies over the past few months. We recently introduced some new guppy fish and ever since they have been dying, most have developed a white velvety/mouldy substance on their sides. At first we thought it could have been velvet disease however upon further reading we have come to doubt this as velvet is described to be yellowish in colour and this is pure white, we have also used velvet control treatment, however to no avail. Also one of the females has developed large white rings around her eyes which look like they could be some sort of fungal infection. <Mmm, much more likely bacterial> I have searched the internet and cannot find anything relating to this. <Look for the term "Columnaris"... or the genus Chondrococcus... and "fish disease"> We have a catfish, a spotted Plec and three black harlequins in our tank which we have had sense the tank was first set up which have remained unaffected. We have done tests on our ammonia levels, PH, nitrate which have all been fine. Can you think of anything which this could be and what is causing it? <Was likely either introduced with some livestock... and/or favored by "stress", some sort of deficiency...> We are going to completely change the water tonight and clean the tank which we are hoping will get rid of any infection in the water. Any advice would be much appreciated, Best regards Emily and John P.S they have also had more babies recently, will they be affected do you know? <Please see this piece: http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/17/2/333.pdf re Neomycin, Polymixin use... Needs to be addressed ASAP. Bob Fenner> Guppy question, sel. sys., dis. 2/17/08 I've had guppies for years and stopped and restarted a few times, out of frustration of how delicate the females are. <Of all fish species... this standard used to be rock solid... the touchy stock from the Far East has ruined a good deal of the hobby the last decades> I also have a 30gallon planted tank with co2 and such, so I'm not quite a beginner. I have almost enough salt to be considered brackish, think between 1Tbls/5gallon to 1Tbls/10gallon. This is a planted eclipse hex 5 gallon. <Small... hard to keep stable... and with the salt... easy for nitrification to vacillate> I have/had 5 females and 4 males. I think I even had another female but she died back 2 months ago. They are all fancy guppies, so delicate it seems. I got them from two different stores, one being PetSmart (sorry). I've had 2 females die now in the past day. I just did a water change 3 days ago, about 20%, as usual for every other to maybe ever week. The two that died were very pregnant and one of them and possibly the other looked like they were about to give birth (both were hanging out down on the gravel or plants being alone). With that background out of the way, is there anything else I can do to make the females more comfortable and less likely to die? <Yes... see below> This is a constant problem and I only got these fish 2 months ago and already have lost almost half my original females. The temp is usually at 76 but can go up to 79 (the eclipse light always has a tendency of heating the tank up if the room is mildly warm). But lately it hasn't been. Is my tank too crowded maybe too? <Is a factor, yes> They seem happy otherwise. Should I instead be buying more reliable females, <Yes> is it possible I've just had bad luck with the ones I bought? <Mmm, not entirely, no> I think the ones that died today were both from PetSmart if that matters. It's just demoralizing. Thanks for any information. -Erin <Too many Poecilia reticulata on the market are infested with Hexamita (perennially) and Columnaris (seasonally, and in more erratic punctuated fashion)... Guarding against the introduction of these diseases can be accomplished only through careful exclusion/quarantining of all incoming livestock... and treatment with antiprotozoal (Metronidazole often) and possibly antimicrobial (most celebratedly Neomycin...). You might have "luck" with buying/selecting better stock from another source... but I would still at least isolate it for a good two weeks (to weaken pathogens) before introduction to your main displays... Having a larger system would be of great benefit here as well as bolstering the fishs' immune systems through improved nutrition... Do see the Net re the disease organisms mentioned... they can be defeated, excluded... Bob Fenner> Losing Guppies one after another. 12/15/08 Hello there, I have kept tropical fish on and off for most of my life and have normally considered myself pretty knowledgeable. But much to my poor guppies dismay, I am at a loss with this one. I returned to fish keeping about a year ago and have made the usual hobby progression from, oh lets just get a small 5 gallon all the way to my current 20 gallon tank and plans for a 55. In my current 20 gallon tank before the crisis, I had 5 guppies 1 male and 4 females (all second generations from my first pair) 2 neon tetras (want more but cant find good ones and afraid to overload tank), and a snail problem. Ammonia and nitrite 0 nitrate barely detectable. ph 7.0 and hardness 150ppm I do have pretty hard tap water but all my fish have always done fine. Use Prime for a dechlorinator. Everything has been stable but then I added a few more fish. I'm not only regretting that choice but also that I didn't quarantine. I went to my LFS and bought a pair of guppies to provide some genetic diversity, since all my current ones were related, and a small 1 1/2 to 2 inch clown loach for the snails. (I know they get large and do plan on moving him to a 55 gallon as he outgrows the 20 gallon. Also disappointed I didn't get more and cant really fit more in the tank. I acclimated them to the temp. and the water and introduced them. Then I saw it, the small white spot on my clown loach. Knowing their weakness to Ich I immediately took notice. I didn't want to make any drastic changes as they were just getting acclimated to their new home conditions, so over the next few days I raised temp. from the usual 78 to 82 and added aquarium salt gradually, keeping the dosage low because of the loach's sensitivity. My biggest neon showed specks after a few days but none of my other fish. All of my water parameters stayed in check and I thought I was going to make it through. Then something went terribly wrong. Day 1 of the catastrophe I found that one of my females had given birth, and she looked horrible. She was pale and hovering near the surface in a corner but not gasping for air. 12 hours later she was laying on her side on the gravel, occasionally dashing up towards the surface and falling back down. Removed and euthanized her. All of my other fish seemed fine. Then later in the evening another female started the hovering at surface behavior. Following morning she also was on the bottom. None of them showed signs of Ich just the weird behavior then crash. I now have only 1 female guppy left, my newly purchased one. My new male went down this morning, and quick. From looking fine to bottom flopping in 2 hours. My clown loach is doing great no more Ich, my neon cleared up too. Only issue with him is he likes to sit in a spot and gasp a lot but then goes about just fine after a bit, but he's always done that, the other one doesn't. I did get a baby in my bag of guppies and its doing just fine. The newly born fry are doing just fine, but there was a mass adult guppy genocide and I don't understand why. I'm watching my female. I think she looks fine but I'm paying so much attention to her behavior that every now and then she does something that makes me nervous, and then quickly returns to normal. I'm sure it's just me, being overly alert, but I desperately want at least one of my guppies to survive. Especially since she mated with my pretty 2nd generation male before he withered away. I don't want to go throwing medications at the problem. For one I have no clue what's going on and 2 I know loaches do not tolerate a lot of meds. For the most part I have always had good luck with raising temp and adding salt for Ich, none of my fish ever reacted badly from the change. And I would have thought that the babies or the loach would have fallen victim first. So now I am completely at a loss. I have gone through the forums and tons of websites but can't find anything that seems to match. Any help would be appreciated, and thank you ahead of time. Desperate and confused, Brandon P.S. In case low Oxygen was considered since I raised temp. I do have a large airstone in the tank and surface agitation from filters. <Hello Brandon. Wild and "feeder" Guppies are generally very easy to keep and tolerant of a broad range of conditions, but the Guppies sold in pet stores are typically "fancy" varieties and these have become increasingly delicate and disease-prone. The use of salt can help, and is likely ubiquitous on fish farms. At low doses (1 g per litre) you aren't likely to stress tetras or loaches in the short term, but generally speaking I'd always recommend keeping livebearers with salt-tolerant species so that you can add more salt as required. Sodium chloride does have a useful nitrite/nitrate detoxification function, and the carbonate/bicarbonate salts in marine salt mix (my recommendation) steadies pH and raises the carbonate hardness. With Mollies, the use of marine salt mix is the difference between easy maintenance (with marine salt mix) or persistent health problems (without). Guppies are not usually so delicate, but over the generations it may well be that fancy Guppies are drifting in that direction. So if possible, I'd recommend adding marine salt mix at a dose of, say, 3-6 grammes per litre. This won't harm Guppies or any other livebearers, but would not be compatible with tetras or Clown loaches. The benefit though is you could cross off water chemistry and water quality issues from the list of possible causes. If adding marine salt mix isn't an option, then I'd certainly be monitoring nitrite and pH stability very closely. All this said, I'm not convinced that either water quality or water chemistry are the key issues here. Whitespot/Ick can be dangerous, but it's usually something that becomes an obvious killer: at levels likely to cause death, the fish would be covered in white parasites. But Whitespot can transmit viruses, and I wonder if that's what's going on here. That would explain why the Guppies dies but the other fish recovered. Viruses are essentially untreatable so far as aquarium fish are concerned, so beyond waiting for the cycle to break, there isn't much you can do. Those fish that survive are presumably immune or otherwise able to deal with the virus. Good genes, hybrid vigour in the case of cross-breed babies, overall health and youth may be factors. In any event, I'd wait a few weeks and see what happens. If the other species work out fine, I'd leave the Guppy population to settle down, and as/when you buy some more, get some wild-caught or perhaps feeder Guppies to get some good genes into the system. I'd avoid buying any Guppies from your last supplier, at least until they've sold out whatever variety you bought last time. Do also review diet, water chemistry, etc; most anything that improves overall health will be useful here. Cheers, Neale.> Fin Rot... (Poecilia; health, behaviour?)
1/30/09 Hi there, I'm not sure where to start exactly, so
I'll give you the set up and situation, then hopefully my question
will be clearer. And please forgive the length of this question. The
set up is: * 10 Fancy Guppies (8 females, 2 males) in a 29 G tank. * 2
sponge filters stacked and running on and air pump that's
circulating 200 GPH * Water temp is 79.4 * Water chemistry is brackish
with SG of 1.003 * Water Parameters are: NH3 = 0, NO2 = 0, NO3 = 20
(!!!This is part of my question) This is a fish only tank. By that I
mean there have never been, nor are there now, live plants in the tank.
Before you say anything, yes, I know that live plants keep nitrates
down, but I've had trouble getting plants to live in this tank for
some reason, so I gave up on it. But, more to the point, is up until
about 3 or 4 weeks ago Nitrates were never more than 5. So part of my
question is what may have caused the change? I faithfully test the
water in the tank every Thursday. The parameters are always perfect
with ammonia and nitrite at 0. I also faithfully gravel vac, and change
10 gallons of water every Friday. That's about a 30% change, which
I would think to be sufficient to keep parameters in check. Yes, being
guppies I get a litter or two of fry every couple of weeks. The fry are
removed from the tank during the Friday water change and (forgive the
harsh reality here) fed to my frogs. (Xenopus) So the first part of my
question is do you have any guesses as to why Nitrates started rising?
Which leads me the second part of my question/situation. Can Nitrates
AT or BELOW 20 ppm cause Finrot? Because I can't figure out how
this happened. One of the males has a clear case of Finrot. Two red
spots on a frayed tail. I've removed him to a 10 gallon Q Tank, and
have been treating him with a concurrent course of Maracyn and Maracyn
II for the last four days. I'm not really seeing a lot of progress
yet, but I'm hopeful. In the meantime, I've treated the 29
gallon tank with a course of API's Fungal Cure which says it cures
tail and fin rot. The problem is I can't quite tell if the other 9
guppies need a more aggressive treatment. Some of the females have
started to have a mild fading at the ends of their tails, but not all.
No one has any noticeable red streaks/spots, or fraying. In addition,
I'm not convinced there's a fungus present. There aren't
any white spots or patches or whatever the fungus is supposed to look
like. Obviously I'm trying to avoid having to treat the 29 gallon
tank with antibiotics. But I don't have ten 10 -gallon tanks laying
around to individually treat all the fish. But I'm also not
interested in having my little friends suffer and die. So I'm at
something of a loss as to how to proceed with treatment of this
problem. Also, guppies are schooling fish, so does the stress of being
alone in the Q Tank for 5 plus days sort of cause more problems than it
solves for the poor little guy? Thanks for taking the time to read all
of this. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Laura
<Laura, the short answer is than 20 mg/l nitrate shouldn't cause
any health problems at all. That's a very safe level of nitrate for
a freshwater aquarium. So let's move on from there. Your
maintenance regime seems fine. Finrot is often caused by water quality
issues, but not always. The other common reason is physical damage.
Now, I mention this because Guppies are not peaceful fish; indeed, the
males are apt to be aggressive. They are not schooling fish as such,
but rather the females congregate in groups while the males fight over
access to the females. A dominant male will try and bully any other
males that get close. Because Fancy Guppies have particularly long
fins, they're less able to swim away from danger, but their front
ends (their teeth and jaws) aren't any different. So it's still
possible for them to bite one another, and quite possibly any damage
caused will be more severe. In other words, my gut feeling is that this
is a social behaviour issue. Livebearers generally do best in groups
where the females outnumber the males by three to one, or more! For
example, at the moment I'm keeping a single male Limia
nigrofasciata in a tank alongside eight mature females and their fry.
Although this species isn't especially aggressive, when kept in
groups the males certainly do chase one another and try to assert their
dominance. Put another way, removing some males and adding more females
could fix the problem. In any event, treat Finrot in the main tank.
Since it's not a contagious diseases as such (all tanks have the
bacteria that cause Finrot present all the time) there's no need to
isolate suffering fish, unless of course that fish can't feed or
swim normally. Cheers, Neale.> Blonde female guppy turning opaque 3/3/07 I've been struggling lately because an explosion of baby guppies suddenly overcrowded my tanks. I have recently relocated them to a larger tank. The problem is, the guppies in my female tank have all been acting very strangely. One started hanging out on her own in the corner and died rather suddenly about a week later. Another one has that 'wasting away' problem, but she's been hanging in for a couple weeks. My last blue girl has recently started hiding out in the corner on her own, but I can't see anything wrong with her. There's one really pretty, really special girl guppy I have left that's not acting funny, and I really don't want anything to happen to her. All that was to point out that something is really wrong in the tank. The girl I'm writing about is blonde, almost clear. Lately, she's started developing an unsettling opaque/white patch in her tail, and it's grown a bit over the course of the week. When the hood is closed, she also sits in place with her fins clamped and shimmies. <Very bad signs> I'm fairly certain it's not a fungus, because it's not fuzzy and it looks for all the world like something internal. I have her isolated right now, in case it is something contagious, but I'm not sure what to do next. There is aquarium salt in the water. Nitrites=0; ammonia gauge=safe; nitrates=less than 20ppm. Near as I could tell, it's a problem left over from the overcrowding a week ago. Do you have any advice as to how to proceed? <Yes... please do a search on the Net, WWM with the term/s, "Columnaris", "Chondrococcus columnaris". Bob Fenner> Sick Guppies...please help! 3/16/07 Hello, <Charon> I hope you can help me save my guppies; I am at a loss on what to do next. I have a 10 gallon tank stocked with 2 male guppies, four females (until tonight there were five), three-day old fry (about 20 in a breeding container), three Neons, three ghost shrimp and a mystery snail. I started the tank approximately three months ago, and it does not have any live plants, <Having some is suggested... for many valid reasons> only plastic ones and some ornamentation (only aquarium safe products). I have a 10 - 20 gallon filter (change the carbon filter every two weeks and it has a "bio pad" for beneficial bacteria growth), an air stone that I run only about two hours a day, the tank is kept at about 80 degrees give or take a degree or two and the light is on a timer, giving 13 hours of light a day. I do 20% water changes once or twice a week (vacuum the very thin layer of gravel at the bottom of the tank), using water that has stood for at least two days, water conditioner, freshwater salt and adding bacteria. <Don't need to keep adding> The ammonia and nitrites are 0, the nitrates are less than 20ppm. <Don't allow any higher> KH and GH are about 100, PH is about 7 - 7.2. I feed the fish 2 times per day, trying to only feed what can be consumed in about a minute or so (standard guppy flakes, some brine shrimp and the odd treat of blood worms). Occasionally I will drop in a bit of algae wafer for the snail that the guppies pick at. All of these creatures are active and all seem to get along just fine. They investigate when I come sit at the tank and are very excited at feeding time, recognizing my routine and coming up to the top centre of the tank. Last week, my one female developed a spot on her side, extending from top to bottom and about two to three millimetres wide. It was slightly raised and looked almost "bleached". It was slightly opaque and covered her gravid spot. She did not exhibit any other symptoms that I could see. No rubbing, no shimmy, etc. I did some research and decided to start using Jungle Lifeguard All In One Treatment, believing this to be a fungus. <Mmm, no> Yesterday I noticed that the gravid spot became red and she started to hide and become lethargic. Tonight when I came home, this area had "ruptured". The skin had opened. I removed her from the tank and examined the spot. I could not see any worms or anything else visible to the naked eye. The area was open but not "burst", some of her flesh missing or gouged but appearing to be "infected" from the inside. Tonight I see that two of my other females are showing the opaque spot. The males do not show any signs of this but it would definitely be more difficult for me to see this on them. The latest guppy added was added about a month ago, however, I did add a plastic aquarium safe plant for the anticipated babies about a week and a half ago, after washing very well in fresh water only. I have tried searching your site and am able to find fungal diseases that are close but not quite (no "rupture"). Please help! Thank you. <This may be a bacterial (Perhaps Columnaris) or related microbial complaint, but like almost all such, environmentally mediated... I would add some "floating grass" type live plant/s here, and increase the depth of gravel (to a good inch and a half or so total), cut the water change schedule to once a week, do away with the bacteria prep. additions, allow the temp. to drift downward a few degrees (the mid 70's F.)... and hope for the best here. Bob Fenner> Only my Guppies Die?! 3/23/07 Hi All! Thanks for your time, My problem is I can't seem to keep Guppies alive! I have a 10 gal tank which consists of 4 neon's, 2 Pristella tetras and a Plecostomus. <These types/species of fishes like very different water than Guppies/Poecilia... which enjoy cooler, harder, alkaline conditions> I have had probably 15 guppies at different times, (Not all at once.. As is too many fish for small tank) <Yes> I figured my problem in the beginning when I lost about the first 5, My water conditions was really screwed up. I got a master test kit and since have all under control, perfect to the "t". The 6 tetras are all orig. fish from when I set my tank up, they have had no problems at all. But every time I get guppies they hide at top of tank, or bottom corners, and/or "sitting" on the plastic plant leaves. I used to have my male/female ratios off. (more males then females) realized this is part of the reason was losing them. (which I would be stressed out too if I was the only girl stuck with a bunch of men in a little tank) I don't have any air stones. I use Cycle and stress coat in my water. I have a out of tank charcoal carbon filter. What am I doing wrong? <Mmm... could be a few things... the two that come most to mind as being likely is that the source of your guppies is bunk... that these fish are not healthy to start with (very common in recent years... as almost all places import theirs ultimately from the Far East... and they are absolutely beat by the time they get to the end-user... and raised in very different conditions... precluding their ongoing health... The second major possibility is related to the first... that you have an entrenched bacterial problem that mal-affects Guppies... likely Columnaris... you can look this up on the Net, books...> FYI I delayed getting water testing before due to I used to have a 5gal tank and Never had any fish die. Didn't realize how difficult it could be to keep these little friends alive.!! Thanks again for your time Jennifer <More to read here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/guppydisfaqs.htm and the linked files above. Bob Fenner>
Guppy gray color ... Columnaris? 2/23/06 Good morning, <Ah, yes> Sorry to bother you, however I can not find the answer to my guppy question. I read about it a while back on your site and am unable to find it again. In our 10 gallon tank we have 3 female guppies, 2 male guppies, and 1 neon tetra. All the fish are doing well except for 1 female guppy. The water is perfect on ammonia and nitrate levels-0 and the tank has been established for a year. Last night all the fish were swimming normally but we had to search for the 1 guppy. She was lying at the bottom in the rocks. We fed them a pinch of food to see if she would stir and she did. She ate heavily and then was semi-aggressive to the other guppies (uncommon for her). We have had her 5 months and she never acted this way. Also she was swimming clumsy, had a gray cloudy appearance in her mid section, and her top fin was closed close to her body. <... good description, bad condition... Likely "Columnaris"...> We dropped at tablet of Metxly (?) to hopefully cure her. My questions....What do these symptoms appear to indicate? <Put the above term in the Google search tool on WWM> Can we save her? Will it spread to the other fish? <Possibly and possibly> Will the medication harm the other fish? <... depending on what it really is... Maracyn? This antibiotic (Erythromycin) will not hurt the other fishes, Melafix neither... but these won't cure this problem either... Again, see WWM re... folks generally use "Neomycin" here> I forgot to mention (may not be important) but the guppy in question had fry last week. Thanks in advance for your help!! Your website has been invaluable for both our fresh and salt water concerns. Carrie <This "problem" is very likely related to age, the stress of reproduction... Bob Fenner< About male guppies changing color and dying. 7/10/06 Hi, this is kinda long since I'm trying to be as informative as possible, so bear with me. :) <Take your time> I've tried looking over your site and just flat out Googling other websites trying to find similar symptoms to my fish, but haven't had any luck. I hope you can help. Alright, my friend and I bought two guppies about... Probably five months ago or so. We wanted to have company in our dorm and thought fish would be a nice addition. They both did very well, if the male didn't just drive her crazy trying to mate, but she seemed to fend him off well enough. (They were kept in a 2.5 gallon with small filter for reference.) We moved back home and set up a ten gallon tank, in preparation for the upcoming babies, since Lorna (our female) was pregnant. Once she had her babies we kept them in the 2.5 gallon with a little castle that had an air stone for aeration and when they were big enough we put them in the ten gallon (which has both a filter and air stone). Since we worried they might still be too little to be with the adults, we then moved the adults back into the small tank with the same set up they had had when in our dorm room (small filter and some plants). The babies are now seven weeks old and seem perfectly fine. The problem didn't occur until sometime last week, Gil (our male) started acting listless. He stayed at the bottom, sort of seeming to hide. We worried that maybe the smaller tank had something wrong with it, high levels of ammonia or something, so we moved him to the larger tank with the babies, along with our female who seemed perfectly fine. He continued just resting at the bottom of the tank, though for short periods he would swim around before going back to resting. We noticed his colors grew duller and his gills seemed to be working double time as the day went on he grew weaker and by the end of the day, he was dead. Our female and all the guppy fry are fine though. They swim about normally and it's a frenzy when we feed them. A few days ago we went to our local pet store thinking about replacing our lost male. All of his fish seemed very healthy, well cared for, beautiful colored and so we came home with a gorgeous red one. As recommended by the store owner, we placed the bag into the aquarium for about twenty minutes before placing him in his new home. He seemed somewhat anxious when we did let him out though and didn't do much swimming around. The next day, his back half was a dark blue color and it wasn't long until he was dead as well. I found him caught in one of our plants, nose up. Worried, we went back and talked to the store owner, who recommended we check the levels in our tank by bringing him a sample of our tank water. We did this, but he says all the levels are fine. He asked the temp of our tank, which is typically anywhere from 72-76. He thought maybe it was the temp change that might have been too much of a shock for the male we had bought from him. He gave us another red male free, with the instructions to leave the bag in the water for longer this time. We set the bag in for about a half hour, then opened the bag and let a little bit of our tank water into his bag for another half hour. Then we let him out of the bag and he seemed perfectly fine, swimming around the tank like he owned it. It wasn't until later today that he started going downhill, his tail fin losing some of it's red coloring and getting almost black towards the top. He's losing interest in swimming around and now tends to sit on the bottom of the tank. Occasionally he'll do a little swimming, but not for very long. What swimming he does is frantic, then he just stops and sinks tail first until he meets the gravel or gets caught in a plant, like we found our other pet store male. My friend and I don't have the slightest idea what is wrong. As I said, we've been looking and can't find anything that sounds similar to what's been going on. If this male dies as well, we plan on going back to the pet store along with his poor little body to see if maybe the owner can better give us an idea if he sees him. Again, our female and babies all seem to be perfectly fine. It had us stumped as to why our males are the ones seeming to suffer. Thanks for your time, I hope you can help us. ~Caitie and Raeven <Mmm, my best guess is that this might be a case of Columnaris... though it is odd that the female has not been inflicted. Alternatively, for the new/er males there may be an issue of poor health resultant from hormone treatment (the males are produced, "forced" through such in their country of origin in the Far East for the trade). At any length, I would hold off on procuring other males, and count on some of the young to become such (with their likely acquired immunity)... This and the fact that females can/do store sperm in their tracts will assure you of further generations. Guppies are "line-bred" back to/through their parentage... in-breeding per se is not an issue. Bob Fenner> Guppies keep dying - 09/03/06 Hello. I have a problem that no local fish stores can answer neither can several online sites. I hope I have better luck with you. <Me too!> I have a 25 gallon tall as my main guppy tank. I also have a 29 gallon community tank, 20 gallon fry/birthing tank and a 15 gallon ISO tank (currently being cycled and set up). I originally had my tanks upstairs but do to the extended heat wave the temps were getting up around 86*F and I couldn't keep them cool and lost several fish and stressed a lot of them as well. So I decided to move them downstairs, after I bought an air conditioner. The tanks now are at or near 75*F now. I transferred the existing water in the tanks so I would not have to fully cycle them again. <Good> The fry and community tank have been doing fine but the guppy tank hasn't. My problem with the 25 gallon guppy tank is the inability of the tank to hold fish. Since I have moved the tank downstairs I have lost most of my fish from upstairs and have tried to restock it. <Might be due to residual effects of stress from the heat...> I lost all of those fish as well. I estimate close to 40 guppy deaths so far in total. The guppies were not all dying at once either. I would lose 2 or 3 a day more or less over night. I have tried different stock from the same store and stock from different stores plus I have tried and lost some of my own stock to this problem. I would buy 5-7 guppies at a time and do a long period of adjustment to get them accustomed to my water. I put them in a large glass bowl with the LFS (local fish store) water and add 1/4 cup of my water. 15 minutes later I would then take out 1/4 cup of LFS water and add another 1/4 of my water. I do this for 3 to 4 hours. <May need to add "an airstone" here to the bag> I then net the fish into my tank and discard the bowl water. I have tested my water every 3 days and the results are fine as are the results from 2 LFSs. I have performed 20% water change every 5 or 7 days for the 5 weeks. I have added salt before but have since stopped after finding out Corys and Otos may burn their skin if it is used. <Yes... and I take it these catfishes aren't dying...> Here are some details without having to put it in story book mode :) 25 gallon tall Aquaclear50 filter 100watt heater consistent temp of 75*F Epoxy coated gravel Florescent light on for about 14 hours a day 3 Plastic plants 2 clumps of Java Moss 6 medium sized broad leaf plants 1 ECO-systems log 7 rainbow chip rocks a handful of floating plastic plants to help fry hide Tank was setup upstairs for 2 months, it has been downstairs (with the same water as before) for 5 weeks now. Testing parameters PH High - 7.6 PH Low - 7.4 Nitrite - 0 Ammonia (0-7.3mg/L) - 0 Ammonia (0-6.1mg/L) - 0 Phosphates - 2.5 Nitrate - 10 GH - 80 KH - 30 Calcium - 20 Calcium Hardness - 50 Iron (chelated) - 0 Iron - (non-chelated) - 0 <This all looks good> 20% water changes every 5 to 7 days, with Nutrafin cycle, Nutrafin Aqua Plus water conditioner <This too> Fish behavior before/during dying mode Fish general hid and most of them sat at the surface. Some also nestled in the floating plastic plants and sat still till they died. Some of them swam around the tank for a few days then followed the same behavior as the ones who died earlier. The guppies have no sign of disease or trauma, they do not clamp their fins nor are their fins damaged. There is no evidence of a parasite either. I use the same equipment for all 4 tanks and the other 2 that are setup are problem free. I changed the filter media a few days after I started losing fish, I rinsed them in tap water (I now know that tank water rinse are better) A lot of the guppies have the "O" mouth when they die. <A clue...> I have trace amounts of brown algae on the tips of the plastic plants. Tested tap water and the readings are good, PH is a little higher then the tank because of the ECO-log. I have put fry from one of the LFS in my fry tank and they are fine and growing nicely. Physically nothing has changed with this tank from when it was upstairs and I am confused, frustrated and upset at the recent undiagnosed problem. I am hoping you can see something that may of been over looked by me. Please feel free to request any more info or photos as I will be more then glad to forward it to you ASAP. Thanks Brian <I suspect your guppies may have a too-common complaint of Mycobacteria... often imported with from the Far East... Please read here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/guppydisfaqs.htm and the linked file above, Guppy Disease 2. Bob Fenner> Guppies With Fungus Okay, different address, same person. With the 37 gal guppies, Neons, ADFs and angelica Botia loaches. The clamped fin guppies? Now they have fungus. (White, fuzzy, stringy stuff) They're all female from our newest batch that was apparently not quarantined long enough. This presents us with a two-fold problem. One, hospitalizing the guppies and two, we'll have a bad ratio of females: males in the 37 gallon when we pull out the infected. We're going to pull out about 6-8 females. My husband is out buying a 10-gallon tank. We're going to put one of our heaters in, one that's "stuck" at 77.8 degrees. We're going to wrap it in towels and put one of our space heaters on low near it to try to kick it up a bit. We're going to fill it half with water from our established tank and with the rest of the water, add salt (1-2 t. per gallon). (Is a filter absolutely necessary in a hospital tank?) <No> Then in our 10-gallon quarantine tank, we're going to put the males until the females are well enough to go back into the big tank. Then watch all three tanks. Is there anything else we should do or not do? < Treat the infected fish with Nitrofurazone. The white stringy things are the result of a bacterial infection and the fungus is a secondary infection. The Nitro will take care of both.> Oh, and about the pH in my last e-mail. we tested our quarantine tank, our filtered tap water, and our non-filtered tap water. They all now have the 7.2 pH, so our water must have shifted. It wasn't the CO2 like we thought. Celeste < In a well planted tank the CO@ may be quickly absorbed by the plants. Check the pH in the morning before turning on the lights and then once again before turning the lights off. Any difference is due to the plants absorbing the CO2.-Chuck> Diseased guppies and fry. help!!! Fast!!
Please help me if you can....I searched and searched the WWM site plus
the web all over, and I can find no for-sure answers for this problem,
and I'm scared if something isn't done quickly, all my guppies
will die. Just to let you know before I go into
detail, all water parameters are good, with Nitrites and ammonia at 0,
Nitrates at around 5.(lowest # on chart) and pH around 7. Temp. is
between 78 and 80. I have also treated the tanks with salt, and have
not seen much, if any improvement as of yet....(1 tbsp/5gall)...yes
salt for FW aquariums also....my not so sick guppies have become a
little more active. but that is the only improvement. Here
are the symptoms... 15 gallon tank...has 2 Corys., 1
Pleco, 1 Betta...all doing well as if nothing is going
on!!! Also 5 guppies....not doing good at
all. Recently lost one other female guppy...thought it was
old age...she was around 2, but maybe not because of old age. and
thinking she may have spread disease....her symptoms incl...thinning of
caudal peduncle and partial paralysis in that she mainly used her
pectoral fins to swim, weakness and paling...she still ate somewhat,
but not much. Eventually, when I knew she wasn't going
to improve, I euthanized her. Now one male is displaying the
same symptoms....especially loss of color...almost turning white,
paralysis of tail to the point where he is tail-standing...head up
vertical, tail resting on substrate, weakness, and not eating...also
thinning of peduncle. One other male is still rather
healthy, but will tail stand occasionally in a corner, not on the
substrate. All the rest, which are 3 females, only move when
fed, they do eat, but besides this they just hang motionless in the
water....not active, but appear strong, and healthy. no weakness or
wasting of tail region yet. What could this
be?? I've read numerous things. but I guess without a
microscope I could never be sure, any
ideas?? TB?? Skin
flukes?? Columnaris?? It is so hard to treat when
I do not know if it is bacterial, fungal, or parasitic!! I
am treating with salt..1 tbsp / 5 gall. but maybe I should increase
dose...and it's obvious the whole tank has something...but the
Corys, Pleco and the Betta are unaffected!! Also. a 5 gall
tank full of guppy fry...water parameters also good. I do a 2L water
change daily....fry were doing well, then...I'm thinking I passed over
what was ever in the 15 gal tank to the fry tank, when I found a fry in
the 15 and put it into the 5....I have slowly been culling the sick
ones, trying to stop it from spreading....but it seems hopeless...about
1/3 of the fry are floating at the surface, not looking good...you can
see there caudal fin turn pin shaped as if its all stuck together or
they are keeping it clamped. I have found no dead ones as of
yet...and also have salt in this tank...1 tbsp....plus Melaleuca in the
hopes it will help...seems like there is no improvements....
Do you have any suggestions or ideas what could be going
on?? Should I kill of the sickest male?? Is this
hopeless, are they all going to die?? Please reply as fast
as you can, my guppies need you!! Sorry
to seem so demanding, but I am desperate and hate seeing my fish
suffer. Thank you so much....for any help you have. <With
the tail clamping that you are describing I am thinking columnaris.
Treat with Kanamycin or Furanace. Remove the carbon in the filter. The
medication will affect the good bacteria in the filter and in the
gravel so be prepared to recycle the tank after medicating.-Chuck>
Gupp-arama pH change & Dead Guppies 3/16/04 I had an excruciatingly painful experience last night with my guppies! I had put a bowl with the water from the aquarium itself inside this aquarium. So it was the same water - I thought. I put fish in it that were pesky or causing trouble to the community and so it was kind of like a "jail house" for bad fish. <Hmmm, that's what breeder nets or quarantine tanks are for.> I had this bowl inside the aquarium for at least a week, maybe two, with a male platy who kept trying to "eat" my albino cat fish. I was afraid he'd eat him alive eventually, so I put him in there. <Kind of odd... My Cory catfish can hold up against dwarf puffer teeth.> Then there was a female guppy which had given birth to about 6-7 babies and was being hotly pursued by about 4 male guppies, so thinking she needed a rest, I put her in there. I noticed that she had scoliosis, so wasn't expecting her to fully recover. Then about two days later, I found her dead in the bowl. I thought she'd died from the skeletal deformity she'd had, or something related to the stress from giving birth. <Probably tuberculosis, extremely contagious to humans-- http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-07/sp/feature/index.htm> The thing that got me yesterday was this: I saw these 4 male guppies had begun to harass the other female guppy and were relentlessly chasing her, so I put all 4 of them inside the bowl to "do some time for bad behavior," and to give the female guppy a little rest. Then, to my amazement, about an hour later, I was going to turn off the light to go to bed and I looked and saw that ALL 4 MALE GUPPIES WERE LYING DEAD IN THE BOTTOM OF THE BOWL! I fished them out, and thought I noticed one's tail had disintegrated, but I'm not sure about that. There others' were all intact, but they were all dead. I then checked the ph in the bowl and found the ph to be acidic, about 6.2 or so. The water in the main aquarium was at about 7.0 or maybe 7.2. So that's about 1.2 points difference! I didn't think the water would be that variant since it was the original water from the aquarium, but I hadn't tested it since I put it in there about two weeks ago. <If there is no water flow getting into the bowl (like it would in a net breeder) then the ammonia & waste produces by your fish will build up in there, causing the pH to drop. Your fish probably died from ammonia poisoning.> Meanwhile, the original platy is still alive inside the bowl with the acidic water and is showing no signs of stress. Why, then did all 4 guppy males die within one hour or so after being put into the bowl??? The only possible explanation I can think of is that the ph change was too drastic for them! Is that a possibility? I thought they would be maybe stressed out by such a change, but not DEAD!!! Please advise. Is there some other possibility that I am not able to see? <I'm afraid your platy is doomed in that bowl also. Get a breeder net, or set up another tank for quarantine or to keep your more aggressive fish in.> Thank you very much for your thoughtful advise! <You're welcome & good luck. ~PP> Guppy Tale Dear Wet Web Media Crew, <Sabrina here, this evening> Yesterday morning I noticed that a part of my guppy's tail was missing and that there was a tin red line (blood probably) on the tail edge where the part was missing. During the day it got worse. The red line spread onto the rest of the tail edge and it looked like it was "eating" the tail. The fish is eating well, there are no signs of aggression in the tank (as I could see, they all have been very friendly: 3 guppies, 3 platies, 2 very small gold algae eaters), the water in the tank is fine, <What were ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH readings? Be sure none of these are out of whack> and the rest of the tank community seems fine. I isolated the fish anyway <GOOD MOVE> but its tail is still getting worse and I have no idea what to do. Please help! <It sounds like the guppy has fin rot; I would treat this fish with Kanamycin sulfate (sold by Aquatronics as 'Kanacyn') or Spectrogram (also made by Aquatronics), which is a combination of Kanamycin and Nitrofurazone. Just follow the instructions on the box, and maintain impeccable water quality; with all due luck, this should be fixable. Kudos to you for quarantining, excellent move. -Sabrina> Alisa Fungused Guppies Hi, <Hello.> I have just discovered that my guppies have fungus. I have also noticed the largest female has very red gills on one side and it seems to be protruding compared to the other side and the other fish. Is this caused by a bacterial infection from the fungus? <Probably not. I would assume this is a minor genetic deformity.> If so, what treatment should I be using? <If it *is* genetic, there's probably nothing to do about it; believe it or not, some angelfish are actually bred to have inadequate gill covers, so their gills are visible or exposed. Often seen in goldfish, too.> I have done a 50% water change and am using a treatment for fungus, have removed the charcoal from my filters (running two while the new ones sets up its biological filter). <Wonderful. What are you treating with?> I have added a new plant and am wondering if that has contributed to the problem. <Although it is *possible* to bring in illnesses with plants, it is usually external protozoan parasites that this happens with. I highly doubt the plant brought the fungus.> I have two Plecos in the tank who seem to be doing fine. <Check to see if the fungus treatment has special instructions for scaleless fish; plecs are scaleless.> My only problem is that they don't seem to like the algae discs I have been feeding them and it is difficult to remove all the remaining food without disturbing the plants and tunnels that the Plecos like to hide in. <What kind of plecs are they? Some are strictly carnivorous. The 'generic' Plecostomus usually only takes algae wafers as a last resort; try sliced, blanched zucchini (to blanch, boil very briefly - like 10 seconds or so). Weigh it down with a plant weight or a rock, and you'll be all set. They should absolutely love this. I also like to feed my 'veggie' plecs frozen Formula Two cubes, made by Ocean Nutrition.> I realize that the food remains have probably caused the problem of the fungus in the guppies <Uhm, might possibly have contributed, but water parameters (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH) should also be suspect; please test these levels, fix if necessary. Keep up with regular water changes, too.> so have cut down the amount I am feeding the Plecos. <I think a change in diet will please all.> Is there anything else I should/could be doing? <Other than testing/fixing the water and changing the plecs' food, it sounds like you're on the right track. Wishing you well, -Sabrina> Regards Dawn (NZ) Infected Guppy I bought four male guppies four days ago, three seem fine but one seemed poorly the next day. He looked like he had very ragged scales on the front of his body. <Sounds like he may have been roughed up a bit by some other fish or developed some sort of infection from transport.> Tonight however, he is moving from side to side and the part where the scales looked ragged now, seems red. <Aha! Definitely sounds bacterial in nature. Try a broad-spectrum antibiotic such as Melafix.> He seems to be eating so I assumed it was stress which would clear as I use Stress Coat in my tank a lot. I've done a partial water change and added some more Stress Coat. <Editor's note: the only purpose of Stress Coat is to help replace lost mucus coating/slime coating of fishes. It is not a "stress reliever". PLEASE read labels!> <The water change was a good course of action. I don't see Stress Coat being of any use to healing his infection, though. Personally, I try to minimize adding chemicals to my tanks unless absolutely necessary.> The levels in my tank are all fine. <That could mean anything. Saying that the "levels are all fine" does not aid in pinpointing the problem, which often lies in the water quality. Please, next time you ask a question, give us the numbers. :-) > Do you think he will die? <I can't say for sure. I think that with regular partial water changes and the addition of a broad-spectrum antibiotic he has a chance, especially if it is caught early.> Is it contagious to my other fish!!!!!! <It may very well be contagious, as it is probably a bacterial infection. Keep your water quality up with water changes and medicate, and you should be met with success. Good luck, Mike G> Guppy Issues Good afternoon, <And to you> I thought I found a case similar to mine on your site, but unfortunately, the response wasn't detailed enough for me to be sure. The spec.s: I currently have four guppies (two males, two females) in a 20 gallon tank with a few live plants, about five baby zebra snails (the largest about 75 mm snout to tail, the others smaller than the gravel stones), a piece of driftwood from my local fish store. Temp was at about 25C, and as of last Wednesday, water parameters were all excellent (pH was about 7.5, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates where they should be). I currently feed them staple flakes, freeze-dried bloodworms, and some vegetable-based flakes (recommended by my LFS) The problem: This morning, one of my girls (affectionately known as Nodoka) had a slightly discoloured patch on her left flank, just behind her belly. It is kind of grayish around the edges, and gets faintly red towards the centre. It is quite large, but seems to be underneath her scales. <Good description> I have been having some bad luck with regards to guppy fatalities (for various reasons, mostly related to human error, o.0;;), but this is the first time I have seen this kind of discolouration. The other three seem fine. All of them are eating well, and otherwise in good colour. I hope this is enough info for you. If I've left anything out, please let me know. <Might be a coloration issue only, but possibly infectious disease... like Columnaris... only time, microscopic investigation, perhaps culture can tell. Bob Fenner> Guppy Missing Fins 7/4/05 Dear Sir, I am incredibly new to aquariums, but got talked into it by a 4 year old last November. We bought a complete warm-water aquarium from our local dealers, and nothing strange happened until we went away for Easter. We had a neighbour check in on the fish and she fed them once a day. We cleaned the tank before we went away. When we came back, the tank was very green, the plants looked unhappy and the fish didn't look too chuffed. We cleaned the tank instantly. We had set a timer to turn the light on and off, but apparently it didn't work. Then again, nothing happened for a quite a while, and the gunging up may be completely irrelevant. However, recently the male guppy (we bought 1 male and 5 females) started to look a bit weedy next to his females who regularly reproduce, and his tail started to lose bits. First we thought the other fish were bullying him, but once it got really noticeable we looked it up in a book. The book said it may be tailrot and the conditions weren't right. Therefore we changed the water again and are now doing so on a weekly basis, and still keeping an eye on the bloke. His tail is still getting smaller, but I thought he'd get better until we found another dead fish at lunchtime (tail and fins missing, but that could be decomposition). What do we do? Thanks Sarah < If it is tail rot, then you will need to medicate for stubborn cases. Do a 30% water change, vacuum the gravel and clean the filter. The ammonia and nitrites should be zero and the nitrates should be under 25 ppm. Guppies like a little salt in their water so add a teaspoon of rock salt per every 10 gallons. Treat the tank with Furanace as per the directions on the package.-Chuck> Guppy Infection? - 10/27/2005 Hi !! <Hello.> We have a female guppy that gave birth and now she has some transparent (fungus like) thing around the anal fin on both sides of the part that gets dark and bigger when they are pregnant. <Okay....> I tested the water and everything is fine, <Fine is subjective; doesn't give me any information to work off. If ammonia and nitrite are anything but ZERO, or nitrate is more than 20ppm, you'll need to do water changes to correct these.> and I have a 100L tank with just guppies. Is that normal and what is it? <Possibly a bacterial infection.... if good water quality alone does not fix it, I would quarantine this fish and medicate with an antibiotic like Nitrofurazone.> Thanks, -Sweden <Wishing you well, -Sabrina> |
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