Guppy upside down and curved....

[Tarajane51796]

Tank size: 10 gallons
pH:7.6
tank temp: 78°
Tank includes: 6 guppies(2 males, 4 females), 4 cherry shrimp and 1 snail.
Water changes : 25% water change every 8 days we have alot of plants in the tank that help keep it oxygenated and clean
Feeding: flakes twice a week they get a blanced cucumber thrown in the tank or brine shrimp

About 24 hours ago i noticed my fenale guppy was not using her tail at all, in fact her tail fin was more closed then open if that makes sense. She was floating at the top struggling to to stay right side up (she can use her side fins), she was floating on her side and finally on her back. 24 hours later she has a curve in her spine. Shes still floating upside down and uses her side fins periodically.

Hoping its not contagious to my otger fish.. i only have one tank so i seprated her in a breeder net. I tried to upload a phpto but it keeps saying my file is to large

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

If you can provide a short 30 second video of the fish it might provide some info too.
If the video is too big for this website, post it on YouTube and copy & paste the link here. We can view it at YouTube. If you are using a mobile phone to take the video, have the phone horizontal so the video takes up the entire screen. If you have the phone vertical, you get video in the middle and black on either side.

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How long has the tank been set up for?
What is the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate of the tank water?

What is the GH (general hardness) and pH of your tank water?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

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Generally if a fish has rolled onto its back, it's on it's last legs. You can try doing a 75% water change and gravel cleaning the substrate every day for a couple of weeks. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, do not clean the filter if it is less than 6 weeks old because you can wash out the beneficial filter bacteria that keeps the water clean and the tank could start cycling again. Wash filter media/ materials in a bucket of tank water and re-use them.

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You can try adding salt.
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.