Guppy has worrying tail

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Laura T

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hey so my guppy has a bad tail that I have just realised today. All other fish seem fine and the tank is in good shape. Anyone have any clue what this could be?
 

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Hi and welcome to the forum :)

How long have you had the fish for?
How long has the tank been set up for?
How often do you do water changes and how much water do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?
Do you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank?

Have you added anything new to the tank in the last few weeks?
How long has the fish had the funny tail for?
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

How long have you had the fish for?
How long has the tank been set up for?
How often do you do water changes and how much water do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?
Do you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank?

Have you added anything new to the tank in the last few weeks?
How long has the fish had the funny tail for?
I’ve had the fish for about 5 months I think and the tank has been up and running for over a year. I change 10% of the water every week and clean the gravel while doing so. The water is purified beforehand as I’ve had hardness level problems before. And nothing different has been done in the last couple of weeks and I noticed it yesterday.
Thanks
 
Try doing a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week and see if it helps. Then do a 75% water change and gravel clean each week.

You do water changes for 2 main reasons.
1) to reduce nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate.
2) to dilute disease organisms in the water.

Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms including bacteria, fungus, viruses, protozoans, worms, flukes and various other things that make your skin crawl. Doing a big water change and gravel cleaning the substrate on a regular basis will dilute these organisms and reduce their numbers in the water, thus making it a safer and healthier environment for the fish.

If you do a 25% water change each week you leave behind 75% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 50% water change each week you leave behind 50% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 75% water change each week you leave behind 25% of the bad stuff in the water.

Fish live in their own waste. Their tank and filter is full of fish poop. The water they breath is filtered through fish poop. Cleaning filters, gravel and doing big regular water changes, removes a lot of this poop and makes the environment cleaner and healthier for the fish.

-------------------------
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea 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, 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. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that.

When you do the water changes, you will have to add salt to the buckets of water before you add the new water to the tank. You only add salt to the new water, so if you add 20 litres, you add salt for that 20 litres.

If there's no improvement after a week, then post another picture and we can look at a medication.
 

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