itchy tummy?

[guppler]

one of my white cloud mountain minnows was apparently trying to rub it's tumy on stuf tonight, and acting kind of strange. even when sitting still it almost looked like it had hiccups. it reminded me of the way female guppies sometmes act when getting ready to give birth, but i have no idea how minnows act when they want to spawn. there's always the possibility of disease, but I hope I don't have somethin contagious in there. any ideas? i thought i saw a little white on a mnnows lower lip recently, but I watcned it for a couple of days and it didm't seem to grow, in fact it seemed to get better. Then tonight i moved some fish in and outand decided to send one back to the girl guppy tank because she looked skinny with swollen gills, but she was ony there for a few minutes. A black neon in the same tank has lumps, but other than that I think they've just had injuries from being picked on by danios and my female beta, if anything.

 

[WILDER]

Being skinny can be a sign of a few thing internal parasites, what does it look like when the fish rubbing it's tummy goes to the toilet, red inflamed gills can be high nitrates,or gill flukes, heavy breathing and flicking and rubbing against objects.
http/www.fishpalace.org/danscomments.html#Lump

 

[guppler]

Well, the minnow with hiccups is smaller than my other minnows, but I think they came from the store in different sizes, in fact I don't think any of my minows are full size yet. I haven't seen it rub on things again, but it mostly just hovers in one spot with it's fins mostly folded in close and flicks them out about once every second or 2 while nodding or rocking slightly as if it had hiccups.
I have had skinny guppies lots of times. my first one was on the skinny side most of the 2 years that I had er, but the one i moved did have redish gills and looked unhealthy. Come to think of it, Mrs Blue danio has been looking much skinnier than she was for a while. I thought maybe she just laid some eggs, which probably all disapeared, because she seemed to shrink over night, but she hasn't gained back the weight yet, and it's been at least a couple of weeks.
(offtopic, but I ended up moving all the guppies out of the comunity tank because I only had 2 mature males left and Betty betta chased one of the girls into holes and ripped chunks out of her tail fin. It waa probably the biggest brightest tail betty had ever seen up close, but now it's not bigger than Betty's anymore.)

 

[WILDER]

What are your water stats in ammonia,nitrite,nitrate,and ph, what size tank, how many fish and which type.

 

[guppler]

Tough questions.
I haven't checked the H2O quality for a while, but I believe I should , and changing it more frequently would be good too. I' ve been having trouble keeping up with school and I feel bad about spending much time on other things, but I try to get to each of my tanks at least once a week in theory.
The comunity tank with the fish in question is 29 U.S. gallons Currently it is inhabbited by 3 white cloud mountain minnows, 2 black neons, 2 glolite tetras, 1 regular neon, (which has been acepted into the glolite class, but the black ones tend to segregate, maybe because they're a little bigger. I hoped they'd all school together), 1 shortfin zebra danio, 1 longfin zebra danio, 1golden longfin danio, 1 blue danio, 1 bronze cory, 1 albino cory, 1 masked cory, and 1 paleatus spotted cory, and too many snails to count, mostly the anoying kind, but some aple, trumpet, and rams horn , which are getting to be almost as bad as the pond snails. I think this is the smallest number of fish I've ever had in this tank, oh wait, yes, and I can't forget Betty betta. She's the boss/neighborhood bully, and the reason why this tank is now guppy free, even though it started out all guppies over a year ago and a couple of months ago was about half guppies(all boys, well part endler, so they're tiny little guys).
I actually got a good deal on a test kit not too long ago, but I usually take samples to a LPS because they test for free and can give advise (ie sell me stuff to improve conditions). When I do clean tanks guppies tend to get first priority because they are the most crowded and some of them have little kids and the're getting so old I have to check for dead ones at least once a day.
One of the other minnows was acting kind of like little Hiccup, but not quite as bad. Mrs Blue looks kind of old and sickly, but i don't know how old she was when I got her, and I found her hubby floating at least a couple weeks ago. I'm thinking about not replacing the danios as they go, because they nip alot and tear each other up and eat mystery snails and stuff, and they don't like salt, which means I can't salt my other fish unless I move somebody, but i suspect the cories don't like salt either. I want to add hatchets and coolies next, and maybe upside down cats and dwarf frogs some time, but I'm trying not to rush into it, especially when I might have disease or overcrowding or bad water conditions, and I don't know what betty would do to their tails. I don't think she likes new guys. I could put her back in a 1 gallon critter keeper and keep her where she can stare at her boyfriends. I'm sometimes tempted to throw one of them in the comunity, but I expect that would be a scarey situation.

 

[guppler]

I think last time I checked every body was on the high side for amonia and alkalinity, but at that point they said it wasn't bad yet, except maybe for the goldfish, but they tollerate it pretty well, and they dirty their water faster than the others, which puts them on a little more frequent cleanings than the comunity too.