Help my guppy is sick

One of my female guppies is sick. She’s become skinny and now is becoming quite pale and even transparent! I looked up a ton of fish diseases and parasites and stress symptoms but I’m still not sure.

As far as I can tell she has no white spots, fuzz, unusual poop, or any other tell-tale signs of specific illnesses besides simply growing frail and pale.

I have quarantined her but I don’t have a hospital tank so she is literally in a bucket which, unsurprisingly, isn’t helping her at all, but I don’t want the other guppies to become infected.

I checked ammonia and nitrite a short while ago and have done recent water changes.

Can anyone tell me what’s up with her? And if it's contagious?

None of my other fish are showing any symptoms luckily but I know they can take a while to show symptoms as well.



Further circumstances:

Echo (the female guppy) came with two other guppies, another female and a male. They were probably a couple months old when I got them. I had them in dorms at school and the guppies all acted completely normal, except that the male seemed to only chase echo and not the other guppy. I also added a cory catfish along the way.

Despite having the guppies for 4 months they didn’t have any fry.

Then I moved home. Once I was home I added new ornaments and a second heater to raise the temp a bit to make the guppies breed. Shortly after, one of my females (not echo) died. I thought “this happens with fish” and wasn’t overly concerned.

I didn't want my male stressing Echo out so I bought another batch of guppies and added them to the tank. Shortly after my male guppy started wasting away. I thought the new guppies may be bullying him so I put him in a breeder box and then eventually moved him to a bucket so it wouldn’t affect my other fish. He also died so I kept a close eye on Echo for a while.

It’s been about a month since the male died and Echo had adjusted well with the rest of the guppies and was healthy and active.

However just the other day I noticed she had lost a ton of weight over just a few days. I removed her from the tank. She is the last of the three from the first batch so I’m really hoping this is just an issue from that first batch and won’t affect my other guppies. Thoughts? Please help!

What are your exact readings from the test kit?
Is she eating?
What does her poop look like?

Can you explain further the symptoms of the male before he died?

I didn't write down my exact readings, unfortunately although I know Ammonium and nitrite were at 0.0, I can't remember pH, but I know it did coincide with what the kit had suggested for "tropical livebearers"

She was eating when she first started getting skinny. Now she won't eat flakes but will still eat microworms.

the male became pale and very antisocial, which is why I had assumed bullying. He would hide by the filter and would rarely eat. His tail developed ragged tears along the edge and he wouldn't eat if there were any guppies nearby. He also gasped for air and stayed near the surface until quarantined. However, once he was quarantined he would lay on the bottom of the bucket or propped up on the ornament.

Echo's poop is a light/medium-brown, which is what its always kind of looked like. I've been watching closely for white stringy poop but haven't seen any.

Also from a top view she seems far more transparent than my other fish and also seems more red by the gills as you can probably see from the photo.

The thing is that the first two of her group both became antisocial and far less active. However, when I noticed Echo's weight loss, she remained active and social (until quarantine) and eating.
Now that she's in the bucket, she's less active but I still see her swimming around quite a bit. She hides under the plants at any movement but is decently active if she doesn't know I'm there. I haven't seen her gasping at the surface or sitting along the bottom (except when hiding) as the male had.

@Colin_T might be able to provide further insight.

How old is she?
How long did it take the male to die from the time you first noticed the difference?

The pictures aren't helpful because I don't know which fish you are talking about, and top views of fish are no help when trying to identify most problems.

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If you have livebearers and they are off colour, clean the tank and filter and add salt.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. Wash filter media/ materials in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn.

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Add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate will affect some plants. The lower dose rate will not affect plants.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

Thank you very much. I will give this a try.

Because I have removed the only fish currently showing symptoms how do I know if the treatment is helping the rest of the fish or not???

The images are supposed to be of the blue tailed female that looks a little skinnier than the other fish in the images.

JuiceBox52 said:

@Colin_T might be able to provide further insight.

How old is she?
How long did it take the male to die from the time you first noticed the difference?

Click to expand...

She'd only be about 7 months old. The male took only a few days to die once I noticed his behavior, however I was accidentally a little rougher with him than I'd like to admit when transporting him and I didn't have microworms either so he simply didn't eat.

UPDATE:

I monitored the guppy tank and realised one of my females are hiding and have white stringy poop. She's large and could be hiding due to pregnancy.
some places I read claim white poop is a sign of parasites whereas other places it simply means they aren't eating which can also be due to pregnancy. However because I'm worried about Echo I'm too paranoid to assume that this is just due to pregnancy.

Please tell me if I'm just being paranoid, or if this is a real concern...

One of my young fish has also had a litttle white poo. I watched both fish to make sure the poop isn't alive parasites but it's not really moving so I'm pretty certain its poo

Colin_T said:

The pictures aren't helpful because I don't know which fish you are talking about, and top views of fish are no help when trying to identify most problems.

----------
If you have livebearers and they are off colour, clean the tank and filter and add salt.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. Wash filter media/ materials in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn.

----------
Add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

Click to expand...

When you say to keep this salt level are you saying add salt every day or just don't dilute it through water changes without replacing some?

When you do a water change, add some salt to the new water at the rate Colin gives. (2 tablespoons per 20 litres if there other types of fish, or 4 tablespoons per 20 litres if there are only livebearers or rainbowfish)

guppypups said:

When you say to keep this salt level are you saying add salt every day or just don't dilute it through water changes without replacing some?

Click to expand...

Add the salt to the tank at either 2 or 4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres of tank water.

If you don't do any water changes then don't add any more salt.

If you do water changes while using the salt, then add salt to the new water at the dose rate you initially used, so the salt level in the tank remains the same.