Help with diagnosing my guppy?

Hi everyone

I’m pretty new to the hobby and overnight somethings happened to my guppy. I’ve attached pictures. He had none of this yesterday. I did add more fish yesterday into the tank.
He’s has an appetite, but he is darting around a little and is currently staying near the top of the tank and breathing rapidly. But he does come down and swim with the other fishes.
I have an air stone, so there’s plenty of oxygen in my tank.
I’m concerned it’s ich or velvet, but he has just as aggressive an appetite as he always has.

Updating with my current water parameters
Nitrate: 0ppm
Nitrites: 0ppm
Ammonia: .25ppm (expected coz the new fish pooped so much yesterday after putting them in and before I fed them)
pH: around 7.6 (I have ph down as I’m trying to bring it down a little
Temperature: 24.8°c

I have had ich in my tanks a couple of times, but I do not believe it is ich. I have no experience with velvet, and am not sure what the symptoms are.
The ph down might be having an adverse effect on the guppy. Is he the only one reacting this way?
Is there a particular reason you are trying to lower the ph? Guppies actually need harder water rather than soft. Do you know you water hardness numbers?

Any time my fish get sick, one of the first things I do is a water change. Especially so if you have ammonia present in the tank.

Yes, only one acting like this. He’s in and out of hiding currently, but acting semi normal.

im try to lower the ph and little bit as I currently have peppered catfish and I’ve read they need a little bit of a lower ph.

I was planning on doing a water change today anyway as I figured the ammonia would be up due to the fish poop.

hardness stays around 7.4.
I’ll also add that the ph down doesn’t seem to have actually lowered the ph (I had the same reading yesterday), but I don’t know how many days it takes to reduce it.

Circus said:

I have had ich in my tanks a couple of times, but I do not believe it is ich. I have no experience with velvet, and am not sure what the symptoms are.
The ph down might be having an adverse effect on the guppy. Is he the only one reacting this way?
Is there a particular reason you are trying to lower the ph? Guppies actually need harder water rather than soft. Do you know you water hardness numbers?

Any time my fish get sick, one of the first things I do is a water change. Especially so if you have ammonia present in the tank.

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Foxfish said:

Yes, only one acting like this. He’s in and out of hiding currently, but acting semi normal.

im try to lower the ph and little bit as I currently have peppered catfish and I’ve read they need a little bit of a lower ph.

I was planning on doing a water change today anyway as I figured the ammonia would be up due to the fish poop.

hardness stays around 7.4.
I’ll also add that the ph down doesn’t seem to have actually lowered the ph (I had the same reading yesterday), but I don’t know how many days it takes to reduce it.

Click to expand...

I assume you haven't completed cycling your tank (or just finished).
It seems (from your description) that your guppy is probably trying to escape the tank, trying to hide from ammonia and gasping on surface because it's stressed out as ammonia is starting to burn it's gills, and it's getting ammonia poisoning.

I’ve had this guppy for 2 months and he’s only exhibited these signs in the last 24 hours.
he’s currently swimming around with the rest of the fish, no longer at the top, doing normal things.
My ammonia was at 0 yesterday, before adding more fish and my ammonia is currently barely .25ppm. I used API liquid test kit and it was only just faint green.
He shows no other symptoms of ammonia poisoning.
It’s starting to look like he has a furry white patches, which sounds like fungus.

Spyro said:

I assume you haven't completed cycling your tank (or just finished).
It seems (from your description) that your guppy is probably trying to escape the tank, trying to hide from ammonia and gasping on surface because it's stressed out as ammonia is starting to burn it's gills, and it's getting ammonia poisoning.

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Have you added anything to the tank in the last 2 weeks?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

It looks like excess mucous, which is caused by poor water quality (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate or low pH), or an external protozoan infection like Costia, Chilodonella or Trichodina.

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

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt, (see directions below).

You should also do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate any day you have an ammonia or nitrite reading above 0ppm, or a nitrate reading above 20ppm.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

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 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt 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, Bettas & 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 (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

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.

Foxfish said:

pH: around 7.6 (I have ph down as I’m trying to bring it down a little

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How long have you been using pH down? When did you last add it?

Chemicals to change pH are not good to use, and if you have hard water the pH will bounce back up causing pH swings. The chemical may not be the direct cause, but it may be a contributing factor.