Guppy emergency

[janele]

Hi, I have had an aquarium running for about 5 weeks, with fish in for 3. I have lost a few danios and neon tetras and currently have 2 danios, 3 tetras, 2 platys, 3 guppies, 1 dwarf gourami and 2 small crabs. The tank is 50l, temp 23-25C (cannot keep it constant), nitrite and ammonia readings both 0.25, pH 8.2 I have urgently tried to get pH reading down by adding a salt recommended for bringing pH to 7, but it made no difference. I have added some more as per instructions and am waiting to test again. The salts made the water very cloudy which I think is due to the hardness of my water (any tips for getting rid of it?).

But my poor guppy. I introduced it 4 days ago. It had a bright orange tail. Gradually it lost the colour so it was just a dull cream, but now it's tail looks like it is just black strands and it looks like the fish is disintegrating! He continues to swim around quite happily...but then so were the other dish before they died. Any clues?

Thanks!

 

[aquarius]

did you add all those fish at the same time? because that's way too many fish for a cycling tank. you have ammonia and nitrite in your tank which is killing the fish and the guppy is proabably suffering for ammonia/nitrite poisoning. i would recommend you return all your fish and leave just the platies or the danios to cycle the tank with because there's a possibility you will lose a lot more fish. do you know about cycling? if you haven't done so already, please read this http/fish.orbust.net/forums/index.php?sh...showtopic=10099 when the redings are 0 for ammonia and nitrite, then you can add more fish, slowly

 

[janele]

I added the fish in 3 batches, with a week in between. I know about the cycle, but on the reading that I took, the 'results' indiacte 0.25 is ok for nitrite and ammonia, and it becomes unsafe at 0.5. Is this incorrect? I thought the only thing we had to worry about was pH. The make of the test is Doc Wellfish.

 

[janele]

Ok - I've just read that link that says 0 is the only safe reading so I've answered my own question. I thought we had the cycle sorted when I did the test.

 

[mashimaro_0000]

lossing guppy color? the water is bad or some tank mates stressing it out.... you lost neons and danio? well that is one of my no's for a new tank.... cuz danio and neon tertra are very sensitive... in a complete new tank you will lost half of your stock.... i had the same problem too. later on about 8 weeks my tank is cycled and the neons stop dying ... so as guppies.... i lost quite a few guppies during the cycle.... guppy is good for cycling they should be though.... try to change water more oven to see how things go. the main factor would be your new tank's water condtion... donot add any fish (especially neons) within the 6 weeks of cycling.... other wise... you will loose all of them. now my NEW neons are as big as my guppies... so big that i am can't believe that they are my tiny cute neons when i once bought them.

bring ph down??? = change water.... dun add anything cuz you will kill the fish....

 

[janele]

Thanks for that reply...it seems a lot of people have been in my situation in the early days! What I cannot believe is that I took all my advice for new fish from the shop - an 'expert' aquarium centre - and they said danios and tetras were fine to introduce after 2 weeks, and said I didn't need to bother testing if it had been running for 2 weeks. How often do you think I should be doing water changes - every day at the moment?

 

[mashimaro_0000]

no dun ever change water more than once in 2 days. you only change it 10~15% every 2 days when you are goign through the cycle. but after 6 weeks..... 3 days 15%~

well some advice may be true form the experts... cuz different fish comes from different farms... they are the only one that have the fish background

if you have uncertainies try ask other LFS too....