Guppy Fry Dead At Birth?

[Holla21]

Hi this is my first post on here, had a look around and there seems to be some really helpful and imfomative people on here! I was wondering if other people have ever experienced guppy fry being dead at birth? My guppy dropped a couple of days ago and I managed to move it to a fry net as I wanted to keep some of the fry to grow them on. A couple of nights ago I came home and found that the female was giving birth, and then noticed that uNderneath her at the bottom of the net were a number of dead fry, around 20-25 of them. There was also 6 more that were alive and so far appear to be doing well. If anyone has info about this and any ideas of what could be going wrong I would be very thankful!

 

[KittyKat]

Fry deaths can be caused by a number of different factors, once of which is stress, which can be induced by certain nets. We would need a lot more information about your set-up and fish to make an educated guess.

 

[EchiroLicious]

Yeah...Stress is the first factors which it came to the death on giving birth. Some of the cause of Stress will be the water condition. Are you moving her to the new tank or what? Is the tank condition is proper for the guppy?

 

[Holla21]

I have an 180L tank running at 24 - 25C. The tank is well planted with plenty of places for the more shy fish to hide away in. Here is a list of whats in the tank:

1 female black molly
5 mollies that are offspring from the female
2 male guppies
1 female(the fish which gave birth) there was another female which died around 2 weeks ago.
5 blue neon tetras
one neon tetra
one harlequin ( the last survivor of a group bought 10 years ago wich has lived on well past all the others!)
one yellow panchax
2 cichlids which were sold in the shop as "strawberry peacocks" (unsure as to whether this is a name they are well known by!)
2 albino corydoras
1 twin spot gourami
1 plec
2 albino loaches

And then the 6 fry in the net which is suspended in the main tank, ensuring a good flow of water for the fry.
I change the filter usually every week or fortnight and carry out a partial water change as often as possible, and the water is crystal clear! The fish are fed on either flakes, dried daphnia, frozen daphnia, live daphnia(if i can find anywhere that stocks it), and pellets for the plec and loaches. All my fish are healthy and active and it is a peaceful community tank, the 2 cichlids can sometimes be a bit terrotorial if a fish of similiar size is introduced to the tank e.g. the gourami, but that settled down after a couple of days. Before losing the other female guppy a couple of weeks ago i had not lost a fish for a longggg time, which I hope means i have a healthy happy tank?!

I moved the female guppy to the net around a week before she dropped, because i was concerned that she was getting constantly hassled by the 2 males, which was not as much of a problem when the other female was around for them to pester! Is that a possible reason for the dead fry? Ideally I would like to move the female to a smaller tank when she is going to give birth and use that tank to provide the fry with a safe placis which to grow up but at the moment i don't have that option. Im hoping to get a second tank once ive moved rooms, which i am in the middle of doing now.

I'm new to this forum and your help and advice is appreicated thanks in advance!

 

[mtbdean]

Sounds like you have a lot of fish in there!

How long have you had the tank setup, and what are the stats (Ie Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, PH)

 

[KittyKat]

Yes, what is ammonia? If you are replacing filter sponges, it is probably high enough to harm the fish in the long term.

Also, there are a lot of what I would consider "stocking problems", starting with a 1:1 male to female livebearer ratio, which can stress the female guppy enough to give birth to dead fry. Let me know if you want me to elaborate on the rest.

 

[Holla21]

Yeah, a lot of healthy fish. As for the stats I don't know, like I said nothing dies so it's alright.

Oh yes please elaborate.

 

[KittyKat]

Yeah, a lot of healthy fish. As for the stats I don't know, like I said nothing dies so it's alright.

That doesn't mean your water is not slowly poisoning your fish. Given by what you described, there might be ammonia in your water.


1 female black molly - ok, possibly may be getting stressed by male guppies
5 mollies that are offspring from the female - ok
2 male guppies - ok
1 female guppy - probably stressed by male guppies: it is generally recommended that over one female livebearer is kept per male livebearer, regardless of the species
5 blue neon tetras - okish, schooling species so would do better in a much larger group.. for example 10-15+
one neon tetra - schooling, should be kept in much larger group
one harlequin - another schooling species, if it's around 10 years old, might be worth finding it a home with other harlequins
one yellow panchax - may be harassing other fish when you're not looking
2 cichlids which were sold in the shop as "strawberry peacocks" - if they really are peacocks (Rift Lake cichlids), completely unsuitable for this aquarium because they require very different conditions from what you describe and water type is quite important, also dis-proportionately aggressive compared to all other fish and may, one day, without any warning, start killing off the other fish
2 albino corydoras - schooling, should be kept in much larger group
1 twin spot gourami - should be ok, although individuals can be problematic
1 plec - depending on species, can outgrow the tank
2 albino loaches - most loaches are schooling and the few species which are not become too aggressive for a community, with age

Before losing the other female guppy a couple of weeks ago i had not lost a fish for a longggg time, which I hope means i have a healthy happy tank?!

As I mentioned before, that very much depends on the water readings (do you change all the sponges in the filter?) and it doesn't sound like the stocking is well balanced in the long term. Most of the concerns I mentioned will affect the life span and general health of the fish.

 

[FrogGirl]

Besides what was mentioned above about stocking problems, not knowing water stats, & having several semi aggressive fish I'm going to say the most likely cause is stress.

I have some slight stocking problems in my tank in regards to number of males versus females. I tried to remedy that at one point but the stress of joining the new tank was too much for some. The other issue is that apparently some of the livebearers I bought were not fully mature & 3 that I thought were females were in fact males. I'm planning to try to take 2 males back to even things up a bit.

I have ran the risk even when a pregnant female seems to have 1 or more males constantly following her around. I wait until I see much more aggressive pursuing by the males, the female desperately trying to hide & ditch the male & then try to spot her birthing tube being open. Then & only then do I move her into a net breeder. If I happen to be wrong & she drops no fry within 24hrs I let her go. It's often thought to be worse on the fish to be in the net for more than a day or two than to constantly have a male or so following them around all the time.

My net has several fake plants in it so she feels a bit more comfortable & I always turn the light off on that side of the tank. Tonight I just had my 4th batch of fry drop. I have misjudged with my guppy a few times but she ended up being my 1st success. I noticed the difference in behavior & moved her. Within 2hrs I had 28 fry. The next day sometime one of my platys dropped cause I found 3 fry hiding that night. Sunday night I noticed & caught one of my platys & now have a net full of probably 50 or more little guys. Tonight again spotted another platy. There are probably 30 or so fry from her but they don't all look that healthy & I think at least a few are not fully formed. They hid in the crease of the net so I was unable to tell for sure. She appeared to be sick about a month ago but after several water changes she seems to have recovered but I think it all added up. I probably should have let nature take it's course on this one so I'd only have the best of the batch but oh well.

I'd say check your water stats. Make sure everything is good there & try to fix some of your stocking problem. Then try to make sure you never keep a female in a net for more than a day & be sure to have some plants in there & lights off. That should help for the future