Guppy staying near heater

[juno26]

Hello all,

One of my male guppies has recently been hanging around the heater at the water surface for most of the day. My partner has also noticed that his poops have been a lot longer than usual. He’s still eating fine and the other guppies in the tank are all behaving normally. The temperature is kept at 25 degrees celsius and I tested the water and nothing is out of the ordinary. What could be wrong with him?

 

[Colin_T]

WHat does its poop look like, is it coloured or white and stringy?

 

[juno26]

WHat does its poop look like, is it coloured or white and stringy?

It’s kind of a mixture of both

 

[Colin_T]

It could have intestinal worms like tapeworm and threadworms, which cause the fish to lose weight, continue eating and swimming normally, do a stringy white poop. Fish can do this for months and not be too badly affected. In some cases, fish with bad worm infestation will actually gain weight and get fat and look like a pregnant guppy. This is due to the huge number of worms inside the fish.

Livebearers like guppies, mollies, swordtails & platies are regularly infected with gill flukes and intestinal worms. If the fish are still eating well, then worms is the most likely cause.

You can use Praziquantel to treat tapeworm and gill flukes. And Levamisole to treat thread/ round worms. If you can't find these medications, look for Flubendazole, which treats both lots of worms.

Remove carbon from filters before treatment and increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise oxygen levels in the water.

You treat the fish once a week for 4 weeks. The first treatment will kill any worms in the fish. The second, third and forth treatments kill any baby worms that hatch from eggs inside the fish's digestive tract.

Treat every fish tank in the house at the same time to prevent cross contamination.
You do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean 24-48 hours after treatment. Clean the filter 24 hours after treatment too.

Do not use the 2 medications together. If you want to treat both medications in a short space of time, use Praziquantel on day one. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate on day 2 & 3. Treat the tank with Levamisole on day 4 and do a 75% water change and gravel clean on day 5, 6 & 7 and then start with Praziquantel again on day 8.

The water changes will remove most of the medication so you don't overdose the fish the next time you treat them. The gravel cleaning will suck out any worms and eggs that have been expelled by the fish. Repeating the treatment for 3-4 doses at weekly intervals will kill any worms that hatch from eggs. At the end of the treatment you will have healthier fish.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Do as @Colin_T suggested. Does the filter have a strong flow? Are there any other “predator” fish in the tank? What are it’s other tank mates and how big is the tank?

 

[Colin_T]

If you can't get deworming medications, try adding 2 heaped tablespoons of rock salt, sea salt or swimming pool salt for eveyr 20 litres of tank water. Keep the salt in the tank for about 3 weeks and see if it helps.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

If you can't get deworming medications, try adding 2 heaped tablespoons of rock salt, sea salt or swimming pool salt for eveyr 20 litres of tank water. Keep the salt in the tank for about 3 weeks and see if it helps.

In Lame mans term: Aquarium Salt.

(API and TETRA make some good aquarium salt)

 

[juno26]

Thanks for the help! My partner is going to go to the pet shop tomorrow to see if there’s medication there, failing that she’ll get aquarium salt. Is there a way of telling which type parasite he has?

 

[juno26]

Do as @Colin_T suggested. Does the filter have a strong flow? Are there any other “predator” fish in the tank? What are it’s other tank mates and how big is the tank?

I have a sponge filter connected to an air pump which is on the strongest flow setting. No I only have 5 guppies in the tank and it’s 60 litres.

 

[Colin_T]

Thanks for the help! My partner is going to go to the pet shop tomorrow to see if there’s medication there, failing that she’ll get aquarium salt. Is there a way of telling which type parasite he has?

Livebearers like guppies, platies, swordtails and mollies just about always have gill flukes and intestinal worms. Gill flukes can be treated with salt. Intestinal worms need Praziquantel or Levamisole (depending on the type of worms).

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Using Salt to Treat Fish Health Issues.

For some fish diseases you can use salt (sodium chloride) to treat the ailment rather than using a chemical based medication. Salt is relatively safe and is regularly used in the aquaculture industry to treat food fish for diseases. Salt has been successfully used to treat minor fungal and bacterial infections, as well as a number of external protozoan infections. Salt alone will not treat whitespot (Ichthyophthirius) or Velvet (Oodinium) but will treat most other types of protozoan infections in freshwater fishes.

You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

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 4 heaped tablespoons 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 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.