New Guppies

[pohkeepsieguilfordoswald]

Hi! So I am very new to fish and on saturday I purchased 3 male guppies from the pet store. Two of my guppies seem to be doing okay but all three are staying mostly at the top or surface. It has only been a few days so their water peramiters have not settled yet but tomorrow I am going to add salt and something to harden their water. Poughkeepsie, my orange and white one, has a split in his tail, which should heal, but Im concerned because he stays almost entirely at the surface and does not swim around an awful lot. He does seem to be swimming and playing with the other two and none of them have clamped tails, although when Poughkeepsie and one of my others, Oswald, swim at the surface their hips point down slightly. I did a 25% water change which seemed to help, but Poughkeepsie seems to keep sinking and then swimming a little but is mostly inactive. Is he sick or is it because of his tail? What should I be doing to make sure they are safe?

 

[SeanTrollope]

hi there and welcome

can you give us some specs on your tank. is it cycled and how big is it. also what is the hardness of your water.

 

[pohkeepsieguilfordoswald]

hi there and welcome

can you give us some specs on your tank. is it cycled and how big is it. also what is the hardness of your water.

Hi, so their water hardness is very low but I am taking care of that today. I feel pretty confident that poor Poughkeepsie has Columnaris and he has been removed from the tank with the other two. My new question is how can I treat the other two or prevent them from getting sick?

 

[fluttermoth]

Do you have test kits for ammonia and nitrite?

Please don't try and change the pH or hardness of the water; you could shock the fish and kill them.

Could you please list all the numbers, from all the tests you've done Your problems are almost certainly because your tank isn't cycled (a 'cycled' tank has a colony of good bacteria, living in the filter, that eat the fish's toxic wastes), but we can't know for certain until we've seen some test results.

 

[SeanTrollope]

Do you have test kits for ammonia and nitrite?

Please don't try and change the pH or hardness of the water; you could shock the fish and kill them.

Could you please list all the numbers, from all the tests you've done Your problems are almost certainly because your tank isn't cycled (a 'cycled' tank has a colony of good bacteria, living in the filter, that eat the fish's toxic wastes), but we can't know for certain until we've seen some test results.

As fluttermoth said we need to know what these things are in order to help.

Sent from my SM-G570F using Tapatalk

 

[pohkeepsieguilfordoswald]

Do you have test kits for ammonia and nitrite?

Please don't try and change the pH or hardness of the water; you could shock the fish and kill them.

Could you please list all the numbers, from all the tests you've done Your problems are almost certainly because your tank isn't cycled (a 'cycled' tank has a colony of good bacteria, living in the filter, that eat the fish's toxic wastes), but we can't know for certain until we've seen some test results.

NO3 - 20, NO2 - .5, pH - 6.5, KH - 40, GH - 30, Ammonia - 3.0

 

[pohkeepsieguilfordoswald]

My two other guppies will put food in their mouth and spit it back out and one of them appeared to have a red worm like thing coming from his tail. Ive added several teaspoons of aquarium salt to their tank as well as Poughkeepsie's quarantine, but I don't think there's much i can do for him as he seems very very sick and will not eat.

 

[fluttermoth]

The ammonia and nitrite are your biggest issues right now; especially the ammonia. Anything over 0.25ppm, of either of those toxins, can cause severe distress to your fish. You must start changing the water, and keep changing it; possibly once or twice a day, to keep both ammonia and nitrite as near to zero as possible.

The red worm thing is probably camallanus worms, but you need to deal with the water and getting the tank cycled first, as that's what's most dangerous to your fish, in the short term.

 

[pohkeepsieguilfordoswald]

The ammonia and nitrite are your biggest issues right now; especially the ammonia. Anything over 0.25ppm, of either of those toxins, can cause severe distress to your fish. You must start changing the water, and keep changing it; possibly once or twice a day, to keep both ammonia and nitrite as near to zero as possible.

The red worm thing is probably camallanus worms, but you need to deal with the water and getting the tank cycled first, as that's what's most dangerous to your fish, in the short term.

Thanks so much! Poughkeepsie is doing very poorly and one of his fins is gone but the other two seem to be doing okay, how concerned should I be about the other two regarding illness?

 

[fluttermoth]

With the water quality that poor, you should be very concerned; having said that, all you can really do is keep on changing the water and hope for the best

 

[pohkeepsieguilfordoswald]

With the water quality that poor, you should be very concerned; having said that, all you can really do is keep on changing the water and hope for the best

I'm having issues lowing the Ammonia how can I get it lower fastest?

 

[NickAu]

I'm having issues lowing the Ammonia how can I get it lower fastest?

Test your tap water for ammonia, if that reads zero, Lots of water changes.

What water conditioner are you using?

pH - 6.5,

Isnt that PH too low for Guppies?

Also please note
At lower pH's, Ammonia( Toxic ) is converted to Ammonium ( not so toxic ) and most test kits measure both.

 

[pohkeepsieguilfordoswald]

Test your tap water for ammonia, if that reads zero, Lots of water changes.

What water conditioner are you using?



Isnt that PH too low for Guppies?

Also please note
At lower pH's, Ammonia( Toxic ) is converted to Ammonium ( not so toxic ) and most test kits measure both.

Tap is at about 1. Should I put something in to neutralize the ammonia?