On-going guppy problems

[Alien Anna]

Hi, as you all know by now, a few weeks ago I lost a lot of stock due to the heatwave. I was away on holiday and my neighbour turned the lights off to keep the temperature down (it exceeded 90F in my tanks one day) and then couldn't get them on again. She also over-fed them due to misunderstanding my instructions.

The nitrate level shot up and the plants started to die. Dead plant material blocked my filters and one of the two filters in my livebearer tank failed completely, leaving the whole tank supported by one clogged Fluval 2. Presumably the oxygen levels in the tank plummetted and I lost a gourami, 4 guppies and 2 mollies. I currently have 5 guppies and 4 mollies in there - it's a 120L tank.

I had to clean out the tank when I got back and I've done daily water changes to get the nitrates down. I've also planted some crypts and replaced the light to get the plants going again. I thought I'd pulled everything back from the brink and everyone was happy, but I've just noticed another guppy looking rather sorry for himself.

It's a gut feeling really - he's swimming about, but not with the other guppies, and he's sticking largely to the bottom of the tank rather than the surface. His fins aren't clamped, and he is a veiltail so it's all a bit dangly, but they seem to be a little less proud than they were. More worryingly, there seems to be a hint of white about them around the edges, and maybe a miniscule dot of white at the point where his tail-fin joins his body. I'm not certain this isn't part of his colouring (he's quite colourful, with patches of yellow, red and white), but I worry it's the beginning of ick or fungus.

The water is slightly salted (1 teaspoon per 18 litres) and I've put some Melafix in, but now I just have to play the waiting game and see if he rallies. Just after my holiday I lost another guppy through some sort of tailrot - it literally got him in 2 days and there was nothing I could do. I hope he hasn't got the same thing! The guy at the LFS told me about this new disease in guppies called something like "Siamese tail-rot" and said he'd lost batches because of it. He also said it was highly contagious.

My real worry is that this is that disease, or something similar and that my guppies are all going to get it. The rest of them seem fine, and maybe this is just an individualist guppy with some white patterning, but I can't help but worry

How do the rest of you cope in a situation like this? (incidently, the hospital tank is occupied by a pencilfish with dropsy, so isolation is not an option at the moment).

 

[ketyana]

Im sorry I cant give advice because Im only new and really havent a clue

but I can offer the sympathy Im sorry your holiday ended up causing you so much stress and hard work

 

[sandyd]

Sorry to hear about your trouble, i myself have had nothing but trouble with guppies from the beginning. Mine were mostly all due to imbreeding, not by me, i purchased them that way. The only guppies i have not had trouble with are the males, females, do not seem to live long sadly. Most of my females dies during labor, or shortly after giving birth to deformed fry. I am looking into finding a guppy dealer, where i could get some quality females to try it again. I have found them to be very sensative to any water change, and usually by correcting the water problem, they shortly recoved. Good luck and let us know. Sandy

 

[suemack]

hi Alien Anna - I had a problems with my guppies for a while - unlike you mine was caused by me through o/crowding, o/feeding and not being careful enough with my gravel cleaning. Started to lose quite a few with what looked like their tails melting away. All I could end up doing was twice daily water changes - about 15%, added salt, took out some gravel each time to clean properly. It took some time, I lost a few more fish but the problem came right and hasn't recurred. I'm not sure what my nitrite etc was cos at that time didn't have any test kits (my how things have changed!) - suemack

 

[AllusiveLife]

Oh wow, how bad was the heat wave? How hot was it inside your house? Wow...

 

[Alien Anna]

Oh wow, how bad was the heat wave? How hot was it inside your house? Wow...

I wasn't there, obviously, but my neighbour says my room thermometer got up to 95F (that's about 35 Celsius). The outside temperature got up to over 100F so my house is relatively cool. Unfortunately, we had humidity readings of 85%+ so the tanks couldn't cool down by evapouration when the hoods were opened.

I expect people from hotter climes would say "That's nothing!" but of course British fish are not adapted to such temperatures. My Amazon fish did fine - I lost a pencilfish but he was 2 years old anyway (the books say they only live 18 months). My Spanish friend said that during the heatwave, birds were dropping dead out of the sky and fish were dying in ponds.

I'm surprised that more people on this site haven't had massive losses of stock actually. Then again, a lot of people seem to be losing mollies and guppies for no apparent reason.

 

[AquaNut]

I know my views on salt in the tank aren't widely accepted on this forum , but please trust me on this one. If you think your guppies are in less than great shape, and the only other fish in the tank are mollies, ESPECIALLY if you think there might be fungus starting, add more salt. Fungus and a lot of parasites just don't live in salted water, ime. Guppies and mollies can live quite happily in as much as a Tbsp salt/ 4 litres of water (I actually know an extremely experienced fish keeper who used to keep mollies in a sw tank), but you won't need to go anywhere near that high. Mine live in approx. 1 tsp / 4 litres, but you might not even need to go that high, if you're not a fan of salt. Dissolve a tsp of salt in a cup of tank water and pour it in... do it every day (or every other day if you're nervous) until you've doubled the amount you have in there now. Watch and see how things go and add more salt at your discretion. I can't make any guarantees about tail/fin rot, as that's largely associated with water quality, but I promise you won't have fungus or ich problems with your live bearers.

 

[Alien Anna]

Thanks Aquanut - I've received simiilar advice from our local expert, "Mr Fish" in Bedford but I was going by the instructions on the salt box.

My only worry then will be what happens if I introduce new stock that has been kept in fresh water? How easy is it to acclimatise new fish to brackish water and how long does it take? Also, would it kill the wild snails that are eating my valis?

The good news is that my unwell guppy seems to have rallied somewhat. I have added a little more salt (another 2 teaspoons) and some Melafix.

 

[AquaNut]

Glad to hear he's doing better. I'm not sure about the wild snails. I used to have quite a few snails in one of my live bearer tanks, despite salt, until I put a skunk loach in there for two days. No more snail problem, and the skunk went back to his normal tank without seeming to notice he'd been moved. As for adding fw fish to your tank... as I've said in other posts, I keep all my fish in salted water, and I've never had problems introducing new fish. I slowly add water from my tank to the water the fish came home in and when they're in more of my water than their water, I release them into the tank.

 

[minh]

I'm surprised that more people on this site haven't had massive losses of stock actually. Then again, a lot of people seem to be losing mollies and guppies for no apparent reason.

mine survived during temperatures of 90f although it was prob abit more but that was the highest my thermometer scale went.

are you sure that your friend didnt actually do anything wrong that killed them? other people that i know of who have fish didnt lose any pets...


sorry about your fish

 

[Alien Anna]

are you sure that your friend didnt actually do anything wrong that killed them? other people that i know of who have fish didnt lose any pets...

My friend over-fed them. I'd asked her to feed my dwarf plec every other day on two algae pellets. However, she mistook pellets for wafers and gave him two wafers. And then he "seemed hungry" on his days off, so she fed him two per day!

Unfortunately, she seemed to think I had a plec in every tank, not just the one, so she put two algae wafers per day into every tank (including the 8 gal betta tank!).

I'm not sure she didn't give more than that because my mollies are total pigs and would "beg" at the front glass for more food. She is a real softie - you should have seen the size of my guinea pigs when I got back! She'd been feeding them on grapes, plums, apples... plus their usual dried food (which in the summer is intended as a supplement to grass, not their main diet!). In case you're wondering, GPs, just like mollies, will eat until they burst. Have you ever seen a guineapig with a dewlap?

Anyway, she got through two packets of algae wafers in 2 weeks. By the time I got home, nitrates in my livebearer tank (which does not contain any plecs or ornamental snails, btw) was over 75ppm. It had green water, despite the lights having been out for 10 days, hair and brown algae everywhere and the plants had started to die. The Fluval 3 was so totally clogged it was not working. The Fluval 2 back-up was doing all the work but not doing it very well (this is a 35 gal tank). The water smelt like rotten fish and I found a dead gourami, a dead lyretail molly and a dead guppy. I put another guppy into the hospital tank but he never recovered. I never did find the remains of the other molly and the guppies - either she flushed them without telling me, or they'd been eaten by the wild snails in the tank.

My betta was very poorly in his tank, which was also in a terrible state (the filter actually burnt out), and he died a week later Surprisingly, my black neon tetras survived without a single problem - I suspect they're from Krypton or something. In my "Amazon" tank everyone, except an elderly pencilfish, was fine - I thought I'd lost some tetras, but it's a heavily planted tank and I can't count! However, you've never seen Golden Apple snails that size in your life!

It was all a bit of a mess, as you can tell. But I can't blame my friend - she did her best and my copious instructions weren't as clear as I thought they were. I don't want anyone thinking anything bad about her - the fault is mine. I should have realised the job was too much for her.

Anyway, everyone seems to be recovering OK and I've got a new betta (in a new tank) who's shaping up well.