Guppy Issues

[deadlypoison]

hello all!

i have a healthy (ish) stock of guppies(somewhere near 6) (as well as 4 danios, 2 loaches and 2 catfish)
they're all fine, but my guppies seem to get a "humped" back over time. i have lost a total of 5 guppies to this, males and females, but mostly females.
they seem to be fine for a while but then their backs seem to look broken, their tales will work fine for a few days and then just droop and eventually they end up swimming with their noses in the air and then die.

the last one to have this problem died about a week ago, unfortunately i couldn't get a picture of it. i still have one original male from my first batch after i had just set up and he's fine. is the hump a birth deformity or could it be the water? my current stock look fine, no bent backs as yet *fingers crossed* i did a water test (simple dip the taper and compare colours) a couple of days ago results are as follows:

Nitrate :: 25 mg/l
Nitrite :: 0/1 mg/l
General Hardness :: >16*d
Carbonate :: 3/6*d
PH :: between 8 and 8.4

 

[waterdrop]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that bent back problems in guppies were another of the many genetic problems they can have from all the years of inbreeding (or some other genetic related problem.) As such I would assume there's not much you can do about it other than seek a different source for guppy stock.

Unfortunately, many here have the test results from paper strips to be so inaccurate that they are considered worse than useless, they are misleading. Most here use a liquid-reagent based test set. If that seems too expensive, you might consider a liquid-based ammonia test by itself first, as it appears ammonia is not among the strip results you are reporting.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[deadlypoison]

i couldnt find an amonia test! i do however have an "amonia alert" thing that sticks inside the tank; so far its in blue which is safe (apparently)
we have only JUST put real plants in, got them yesterday so possibly that will help?

 

[nosoup4you]

Hunched backs in female Guppies is a natural consequence of frequent pregnancy. Do they typically go hunchbacked after they've dropped a heavy load of fry?