My first aquarium ever - guppys

[erinbarbour]

Hi,
My name is Erin. This is my first aquarium. It is a 15 gallon fluval flex, purchase for my son for Christmas (but I am obsessed with it too!). We wanted live plants so we have 2 anubias, a lace fern, a java fern, and two other plants. We started with 8 guppies, but unfortunately 4 have died already. We are on day 22 with the tank and the remaining 4 are very active and appear healthy. Just trying to learn as much as I can to keep the rest alive and healthy.

Our pH is staying steady at 7.0
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
temp: 76

Our ammonia did go up as high as .5 and we did a water change.
A friend lent us his filter sponge to add more good bacteria to the tank. We have used 2 bottles of safe start bacteria.
We replaced the activated carbon insert with Eheim substrat pro bio filter medium as recommended by the fish store.

We started with feeding broad spectrum pellets for the first week, but I think the guppys did not like it very much. I also noticed a lot of poop was see through, and some was white and stringy. I started feeding them flakes and frozen brine shrimp, and a pea occasionally and that seemed to help improve their appetite and poops started looking brown again. We also added aquarium salt and seachem stability.

Questions: Please Help!
I have read that guppys like hard water. How would I test for that? If my water is soft, how would I increase the hardness for the guppys?

Should I continue to add the aquarium salt with every water change as recommended by the fish store owner? Also, my son wants snails and I think that salt is bad for them, so should I stop doing it?

Should I add fertilizer to help my aquarium plants?

Any other advice is appreciated.

 

[Essjay]

For your hardness, look on your water provider's website. You need a number and the unit of measurement (there are several they could use). Post it on here and we can tell you what it all means.

Salt used to be used routinely in tanks but we now know it isn't good for fresh water fish long term. It can be used as a disease treatment but never longer than 4 weeks. It sounds as though the store owner hasn't kept up to date.
Guppies can tolerate salt better than soft water fish, but even so it shouldn't be used routinely for them. Water changes without salt will dilute the salt out.


The guppies that died - did they have any visible symptoms? Disintegrating fins, sores or other marks on the body? Staying at the top of the tank or sitting on the bottom of the tank? Anything you can tell us will help.

 

[erinbarbour]

For your hardness, look on your water provider's website. You need a number and the unit of measurement (there are several they could use). Post it on here and we can tell you what it all means.

Salt used to be used routinely in tanks but we now know it isn't good for fresh water fish long term. It can be used as a disease treatment but never longer than 4 weeks. It sounds as though the store owner hasn't kept up to date.
Guppies can tolerate salt better than soft water fish, but even so it shouldn't be used routinely for them. Water changes without salt will dilute the salt out.


The guppies that died - did they have any visible symptoms? Disintegrating fins, sores or other marks on the body? Staying at the top of the tank or sitting on the bottom of the tank? Anything you can tell us will help.

Thank you so much for you quick response and willingness to help! I appreciate it sooo much!

I found a water quality report from 2019 for my city (Worcester) which said hardness is 25ppm with a range from 18-31ppm. Could you tell me what those numbers mean?

Symtpoms of 4 fish that died:

The first fish died suddenly on day 7 and was very active until then. He was the tiniest guppy. The second fish also died on day 7 and had been acting very sluggish and staying near the top corner of the tank away from any current near the surface of the water. I noticed a white stringy poop. The third fish died on day 12 and had also been very sluggish for several days, although extremely energetic for the first week. He had long brownish poop that took up to 24 hours to come out. One poop was as long as his body, but was brown. He stayed inactive near the top and sometimes the bottom. I noticed him opening and closing his mouth constantly. The fourth fish died on day 19. He also stopped moving much and just stayed in one place away from the group. He sometimes preferred the top or the bottom and also opened and closed his mouth constantly near the end and lost his color and had stopped eating for days. I noticed some translucent poop from him earlier on while he was still energetic. His poop later turned brown, but he also seemed constipated. I never saw rotting fins, or spots on the body.

- Day 7, after the two fish died: I put in 1/3 cup of aquarium salt, and gave them PraziPro (because I wasn't sure about parasites with all the translucent poop I saw floating around). I stopped feeding the broad spectrum pellets (which may have been too large), and started feeding flaked food and frozen brine shrimp.
-Day 8: ammonia tested .25, and had been testing at 0 prior to that
-Day 11: ammonia raised to .5, nitrates raised to 5 and Ph was at 6.6. I did a 50% water change and added more aquarium salt, and also added another bottle of safe start bacteria. I added some alkaline buffer to raise pH to 7.0 and started giving Seachem Stability for ''new tank syndrome'' which I continued for 7 days per instructions.
-Day 14: A friend lent me his filter sponge from his established aquarium to increase good bacteria.

The pH seems to be more stable now between 6.8-7.0. and ammonia, nitrites and nitrates have all been testing at 0.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[Essjay]

hardness is 25ppm with a range from 18-31ppm.

This is very soft water. Guppies need over 200 ppm to be happy and yours is an awful lot lower than that. But there are hundreds of species of soft water fish that would love your water. Can I suggest that when you replace the dead guppies, you choose soft water fish instead of more guppies. Look up the hardness different fish need on https://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/ or ask on here.
Some fish profiles on Seriously Fish use ppm, some use another unit, dH. Your 25 ppm converts to 1.4 dH

Prazipro was a good idea as white stringy poop is a symptom of intestinal parasites. But the instructions must be followed if they say to repeat the treatment. This is because the med kills worms but not eggs. After the first treatment, the eggs hatch and reinfect the fish and the repeat treatments are to kill the worms that were eggs during the first treatment.
I think Prazipro contains just praziquantel which kills tapeworms. It doesn't kill round worms like camallanus worms. Have you ever seen something which looks like tiny red bristles sticking out of the guppies' anus when they stop swimming for a moment?


Brown poop is usually just over eating. A lot of people feed their fish peas when this happens. You only need a couple of peas, put them in a bit of water and microwave them for 30 seconds, then pop them out of their skin and chop up small enough for the fish.



Guppies are notoriously weak fish nowadays, usually due to the conditions they are bred in. They also have the added problems of being in water that is too soft for them, having ammonia or nitrite in the water at some point, and possibly intestinal parasites (many guppies are infected at the fish farms).
You have the water conditions under control now. But that still leaves the soft water and possible worms. Can I suggest that you finish treating with prazipro (do whatever the instructions say), then treat with something containing levamisole (for round worms) or flubendazole. As I don't live in the US, I don't know which meds contain these.

Then let the remaining guppies live out their lives, but when you get more fish, choose from soft water species. And let water changes dilute the salt out before getting soft water fish.

 

[erinbarbour]

This is very soft water. Guppies need over 200 ppm to be happy and yours is an awful lot lower than that. But there are hundreds of species of soft water fish that would love your water. Can I suggest that when you replace the dead guppies, you choose soft water fish instead of more guppies. Look up the hardness different fish need on https://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/ or ask on here.
Some fish profiles on Seriously Fish use ppm, some use another unit, dH. Your 25 ppm converts to 1.4 dH

Prazipro was a good idea as white stringy poop is a symptom of intestinal parasites. But the instructions must be followed if they say to repeat the treatment. This is because the med kills worms but not eggs. After the first treatment, the eggs hatch and reinfect the fish and the repeat treatments are to kill the worms that were eggs during the first treatment.
I think Prazipro contains just praziquantel which kills tapeworms. It doesn't kill round worms like camallanus worms. Have you ever seen something which looks like tiny red bristles sticking out of the guppies' anus when they stop swimming for a moment?


Brown poop is usually just over eating. A lot of people feed their fish peas when this happens. You only need a couple of peas, put them in a bit of water and microwave them for 30 seconds, then pop them out of their skin and chop up small enough for the fish.



Guppies are notoriously weak fish nowadays, usually due to the conditions they are bred in. They also have the added problems of being in water that is too soft for them, having ammonia or nitrite in the water at some point, and possibly intestinal parasites (many guppies are infected at the fish farms).
You have the water conditions under control now. But that still leaves the soft water and possible worms. Can I suggest that you finish treating with prazipro (do whatever the instructions say), then treat with something containing levamisole (for round worms) or flubendazole. As I don't live in the US, I don't know which meds contain these.

Then let the remaining guppies live out their lives, but when you get more fish, choose from soft water species. And let water changes dilute the salt out before getting soft water fish.

Hi Essjay, Thank you so much for all your excellent advice.

So, I believe the fish store would take back the live guppies I have and I could exchange them for a different fish. It sounds like that might be better for the guppies. I really like the guppies, buy my son wanted neon tetras and I believe they are soft fish and need to be in group of at least 10.

Any advice for how I could stock this 15 gallon tank. Could we fit any other fish beside neon tetras? Would one beta fish be ok with neon tetras? If we get neon tetras, how many should we start with? Could he also get a snail? Do you think our tank is ready for the fish or should we wait for it to cycle more? Sorry for so many questions but you have been a huge help!

Erin

 

[Kyle E.]

If you got a sponge filter with good bacteria from a friend and it was running for a good while your tank is fully cycled, don't worry about that.

Almost any snail would be fine for your tank. The only time you need to worry is when you are keeping Oscars, big cichlids, or puffers. Snails are basically bulletproof so good luck messing them up lol. Just don't get apple snails as they will eat your plants. I would suggest maybe a mystery snail or two.

 

[erinbarbour]

Thank you for your response Kyle. How long does the filter sponge from my friend need to be in the tank before it is cycled?

The mystery snail sounds nice. If I get more than one, will the snails reproduce and take over the tank?

Could you give me recommendations for stocking fluval flex 15 gallon tank, which has very soft water at 25ppm. My son is fond of neon tetras. How many would you recommend I get for this size tank? I have read they are most comfortable in schools of 10 fish, but this seems like it might be too much for 15 gallons. I also read that they like there to be floating plants. Any recommendations for floating plants?

Currently we have 4 guppies, but I worry that the soft water will be bad for them long term, so I would like to return them to the fish store and exchange for fish that prefer soft water. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[Kyle E.]

The filter sponge is already cycled from your friend. It already has all the good bacteria you need for your aquarium.

Mystery snails are actually much easier to control than other snails as they lay their eggs above the waterline of your tank. If your tank doesn't have space between the water line and the lid than they can't lay the eggs. Even if they do lay eggs, you can just look above the waterline and scrape them off and throw them away.

I am not going to comment on the stocking as I am bad with that sort of thing. Sorry!

For the floating plants thing, I personally like Amazon Frogbit. My fish love it, I think it looks really nice, and its super easy to grow. I definitely recommend adding some sort of liquid fertilizer for them though as mine didn't grow before I started fertilizing. I personally recommend aquarium co op's easy green.

There are more floating plant options as well but I don't know that many of them so I will leave that to other members. I am still learning a lot about this hobby!

 

[erinbarbour]

Thank you so much for your response Kyle. It was very helpful. I will look into getting the amazon frogbit and the co op easy green.

I would love any advice about neon tetras and if they would do ok in very soft water (25ppm) in a 15 gallon tank.

 

[Essjay]

The media in your current filter sounds like it is cycled for the number of guppies currently in the tank. If ammonia and nitrite stay at zero, it's cycled. But if you add more fish that means more ammonia being made so there won't be enough bacteria, they have to multiply to keep up. The bacteria can double in number in several hours - call it 24 to be on the safe side. As you already have enough bacteria to support 4 guppies, doubling in 24 hours means enough to support 8 guppies (or their equivalent).

I agree with Kyle E - floating plants will help enormously. Plants take up ammonia; they do it faster than the bacteria and they don't turn it into nitrite. The faster growing the plant, the more ammonia they take up. Anubias and java fern are slow growing plants so they won't take up much; I'm not sure about lace fern. But floating plants take up a lot of ammonia - they are near the lights and they can get carbon dioxide from the air. Floaters are often referred to as ammonia sinks, they take up so much. I have frogbit on both my tanks, and the plants cover virtually all the surface of both.


Neon tetras are great for your water. A group of 10 would look good. But before returninght eguppies or buying neons, you need to make sure the guppies current;y in your tank are worm free. If prazipro says to do another course of treatment after a certain number of days, do that first - or you could infect the neons. And keep an eye on the remaining guppied for tiny red bristles sticking out of the anus. If you don't see any, good. But if you do you'll need to treat for round worms as well.

Snails. What do the prazipro instructions say about invertebrates? Some meds kill snails and shrimps so you have to wait till all the med is completely gone for the tank to be safe for them.

 

[erinbarbour]

Thank you for the information about the cycling and adding new fish.

The instructions on the prazipro say that one treatment should be sufficient but can be repeated after 3 days and can be used as a preventative. It treats fluke, tapeworms, flatworms, and turbellarians. I did give a second dose 4 days after the first dose, just to be sure. The remaining four guppies seem to be active and eating/pooping normally now.

I like the guppies we have left. Is it cruel to keep them with very soft water? I am not sure if I should keep or return them to the fish store. I was also hoping to add some neon tetras to the tank. It is recommended to buy them in group of at least 6. Do you think that will be overcrowding the 15 gallon tank to have 10 fish, if we do decide to keep the guppies?


Erin

 

[erinbarbour]

The prazi pro does not say anything about affecting snails. I did put aquarium salt in though after the last water change. Not sure how many water changes will be enough to get the salt out...

 

[Essjay]

I like the guppies we have left. Is it cruel to keep them with very soft water? I am not sure if I should keep or return them to the fish store. I was also hoping to add some neon tetras to the tank. It is recommended to buy them in group of at least 6. Do you think that will be overcrowding the 15 gallon tank to have 10 fish, if we do decide to keep the guppies?

If you like the guppies, keep them. They may not live as long as they should but you can enjoy them while you have them. Once they've passed on, just replace them with soft water fish.

If you keep the guppies, 8 neons would be OK for the tank. But with shoaling fish it is best to all them all at the same time, and this would add twice as many fish as you already have in one go. The plants you have may well cope with this (you named 3 plants in your first post and said there were also 4 more) and it does depend on what the other 4 are. But if you were to buy some anacharis and just leave the stems to float as a temporary measure, it would help avoid doing a fish-in cycle.

he prazi pro does not say anything about affecting snails. I did put aquarium salt in though after the last water change. Not sure how many water changes will be enough to get the salt out...

That's good about the prazipro and snails. So many meds kills invertebrates (shrimps and snails) so if we want any inverts we always need to check.
Just the usual water changes (which should be 50% a week) will slowly get rid of the salt. After the first water change there will only be half the original amount of salt; after the second, a quarter; after the third, an eighth and so on.

 

[erinbarbour]

Thank you for the incredibly thoughtful and informative responses! Before finding this forum, I spent hours searching out information on the internet, often to find conflicting information that left me more confused than before. Having a knowledgable person answer my specific questions has been such a life saver!

Here is a picture of our tank. Not sure what the plant on the left it, but it is growing fast. The others are not well established yet. I bought the co op easy green, and I'm looking for a place that sells amazon frogbit. It is $10 plus $9 shipping on amazon which seems a bit pricey.

Thanks again!

 

[Kyle E.]

8 Amazon Frogbit **BUY 3 GET 1 FREE** Live floating plant aquatic aquarium pond | eBay

Find great deals for 8 Amazon Frogbit **BUY 3 GET 1 FREE** Live floating plant aquatic aquarium pond. Shop with confidence on eBay!

www.ebay.com

This is where I got mine. They arrived in great condition!