Guppy Tail Turning White, Fraying, heading towards body

[Jori Fox]

Hi, I have a cycled 55 gallon freshwater tank. Currently infected with ich but treating with 11 tablespoons of aquarium salt and tank at 84 degrees. Tank is also going through an algal bloom since I accidentally left the lights on for a little too long.

My guppy started turning white on his tail last night and overnight the entire half of his body has lost pigment and his tail began to fray. Two other guppies have begun the same process today. It almost looks like they are decaying. I am sure they are going to die but I would like to know the cause in case I lose my other fish. (Male and female guppies in together)

 

[mikey11]

is salt the only thing your treating them with?

and more importantly.....how often are you doing water changes?....and how much water?

 

[King puff]

I would read up about the ich life cycle. Basically, an ich parasite or trophozoite bursts from a cyst found on the skin, gills, and fins of a fish. The trophont forms a protective shell called a tromont where it multiplies inside. These will lay about your aquarium until they burst. When there are laying around, it is a good time to vacuum your gravel. do this every day. When the tromont bursts, it releases thousands of new tomites that will swim around to look for a fish host. the Tomites will infect a new host and the cycle will start again.

Salt is what she should be using. In fact, I would not recommend using it at all. Good ways to treat ich are NOT medicines. The best way and most safe way is doing it naturally. Raise the temp to 83-84 for two weeks. Do frequent water changes and vacuum the gravel VERY well during the water changes to make sure your getting all the tromonts out of your tank.

It sounds like your guppy has fin rot. This can be caused by lack of frequent water changes or stressed fish. I would recommend doing 50 percent water changes every other day. And remember, NO medications!

 

[Jori Fox]

I stuck with only using salt and I had the temp raised to 84 since I believed medications would do more harm than good in my tank. I have lost 6 fish since the post all to the same symptoms. 3 were guppies, one was a dwarf gourami, one was a golden dojo loach, and the other was a betta that were all doing amazing in the tank.

At this point I am pretty frustrated that I lost most of my fish within the span of 24 h. I have been reading all over this forum trying to find if ich is the root cause of this rapid decay and death. I added the salt and raised the temp exactly a week ago

I do water changes weekly that range from 15-25% as well as test my water parameters. Everything is at 0 except my nitrate which is always around 5ppm. I also vacuum my gravel weekly.

 

[Jori Fox]

Also, is it truly safe to be vacuuming the water every single day because I would hate to cause a swing in the levels and kill off everyone else.

 

[mikey11]

to fight off ich i would be changing about 50% every day, add more salt after changing the water.....you are also not changing enough water in general, if your only going to do weekly water changes, you should be doing at least 50%

you dont have to vaccuum gravel at every water change, only when nessessary

 

[Jori Fox]

I will try doing that, and I will also up my water changes.

 

[King puff]

Please do not use salt! This is not necessary and may have lead to the deaths. Some fish such as corys and other acidic loving fish cannot tolerate salt and will die. For example, your dojo loach will love a ph of 7.0 all the way to 3.5 but can not tolerate anything much higher. Adding salt probably raised the ph and stressed the fish resulting in your loaches death. All you need to do is water changes. I have had a few ich breakouts and I have never used salt or medications. Btw ich is not the problem of the deaths. It does not take affect in 24 hours and fish such as gouramis and other hardy fish should have survived it. I think the salt is adding to the stress that the fish have already.

Also, you do need to vacuum the gravel while treating for ich. As I said, the tromonts will settle in the gravel and multiply very rapidly inside their shell. If you do not get rid of these, they will just pop open and you have more ich. If the tank is heavily planted, you could hover the vacuume above the surface to at least get some of the tromonts out of the water.

 

[Jori Fox]

It is very hard for me to figure out exactly what I should be doing. Everyone has conflicting advice. I have two Cory cats in my tank that are doing fine with the salt.
I am concerned that the temp is what killed my gourami, because as you said they are very hardy and I was shocked he died. I have two other dwarf gouramis in there. So as of right now my plan of action is to vacuum my gravel, not add anymore salt, and I am not sure about what temp is truly safe for my fish.

 

[King puff]

How long have you been raising the temperature? The fish should be able to handle it. I think they are dying from the stress of ich (ich is caused by stress).

 

[Jori Fox]

I have had it at 83 for a week now

 

[King puff]

Lower it to 83 and go one more week with 50% water changes every other day. If things get worse, please tell us. Hope they get better!

 

[NickAu]

AQUARIUM SALT does not evaporate, and is not filtered out, when changing water only add enough salt to treat the new water.

Can you post a photo of the fish please?

 

[Jori Fox]

UPDATE: After rapidly losing 10 fish I have decided that all symptoms point to Columnaris Disease. https://www.thespruce.com/columnaris-disease-in-aquarium-fish-1378480