Hi All ...new And Looking For Advice, Please.

[loule]

Hello all.
 
I have a small 15 u.s gallon tank which I have set up as a planted community tank, mainly with live bearers for the enjoyment of my 5 year old boy (and myself, of course).
 
It is a busy little set up with plenty of plants, bog wood and live rock. It has been well cycled and has been established for nearly 2 years.
 
We have... 2 Albino corys; 4 rummy nose tetras; 4 unknown tetras.. bought as rummy nose, but they have red tips on their tails instead of black and white???; 4 ornate tetras; 6 neon tetras; approx 12 guppies; 1 assassin snail; 1 bristlenose pleco; 6 fry unknown.
 
Everything sits at a happy 0 - ammonia, nitrate levels; PH is just below 7 and temp is 25.
 
This tank is a bit of a knocking shop with the platies, guppies, neon tetras and 'fake' rummy tetras being pregnant/with eggs.
 
The question concerns one of my guppies. Obviously pregnant, she looks like she will burst at any moment, but shes been pregnant now for over 7 weeks and her gravid spot once dark black has turned red nearer the anus and has been like this for 2 days. She swims around the tank just fine and still eats. Her scales and fins sit fine, so I know its not dropsy. Just concerned that shes been so big for so long. Others have been pregnant and had their fry, yet shes still big. Its not constipation as i've seen her poo.
 
They get fed a mixture... mainly tropical fish flakes, with added catfish and reef herbivore pellets 5 days a week, twice a day and on the other days 1 fresh, 1 frozen once a day spread out through the week.
 
Any information or help would be gratefully appreciated as i'm very worried about her. Have considered doing a epsom salt bath... would this help? Also if anyone knows what my mystery tetras are that would be lovely too.
 
Thanks in advance.

 

[madmonkey04]

Hi I seem To have the same problem I have seen a few other problems like this on the forums some people have had to clove oil their guppies and others were fine the people who clove oiled their guppies were said to have an inflammation on the guppies anus if yours does not it should be fine on the other hand I have no idea why your guppy still seems to be "pregnant"  same with mine. hope that helps.

 

[LyraGuppi]

I believe your tank is a bit overstocked, which may result in your guppy female being too stressed to release her fry. In other words, she's aborting her pregnancy until she can find I safe, quiet place to give birth. Is you want to save the fry and the mom, move her into a separate tank.
 
And Welcome to the TFF!

 

[Wills]

Hi Loule welcome to the forum
 
As mentioned above there are quite a lot of fish in your tank for the size that it is. A very rough guide to go by is the inch per gallon rule, it is by no means an accurate way of stocking your tank but generally if you are around that figure your off to a good start! Not including the snail or fry you are upto about 45 inches of fish... And then you need to compensate for the poop machine that is your BN plec.
 
I would suspect that this volume of fish producing that volume of waste is something to do with your ailing Guppy. Have you measured your Nitrate? With that many fish I would expect it to be quite high - in the UK most tap water is quite high anyway (mine is 40ppm out of the tap) so overstocked tanks often run at 150ppm + Also what test kits are you using? Is it the paper strips or liquid drop tests?
 
Im not really sure what to suggest, as I know obviously you have built the tank with your son and I would hate for it to be a disapointment to him to see some of the fish removed. I mean ideally you would want to either get a bigger tank just to accomodate this volume of fish or rehome some of them so that the remaining ones have healthier longer lives.
 
If I were suggesting a stocking list based on the tank you have I would probably have suggested
 
3 Guppies - all male to avoid overstocking a small tank with fry
8 Tetras - Neon or Rummynose, the Ornates get a bit too large for this tank IMO
6 Albino corys;
 
The plec is sort of ok in a tank this size but not with that many fish in there. Though I made that list from your current fish I would have actually looked at smaller species that are relatives to what you are keeping so instead of the Guppies I would have gone for Endlers Live Bearers which are smaller and easier to keep in all male communities, for the Tetras you are better with Ember Tetras or Green Neon Tetras again they stay smaller than the Rummy Nose and Neons and lastly instead of the Albino Cories I would go for Panda Cories or Pygmy Cories. The reason for going for the smaller relatives is you can get bigger schools and over all the waste load is smaller.
 
Hope thats helped, if its changed your plans on what to keep let us know and I'm sure we will get the tank healthy again
Wills