pregnant guppy suddenly dies

[abudakos]

Hi all, I am new to this forum. I have a 112 lt community aquarium with:

9 cardinals
3 upside-down cat fish
1 otto
1 CAE
1 pair of guppies (used to have around 9)

(plants: 1 echinodorus bleheri, 1 anubias barteri, lots of ceratophylum demersum)

Last week, one of my female guppies which was pregnant suddenly died before giving birth to the fries. She had given birth lots of times in the past and I don't know what went wrong this time. The same thing happened the month before with another female guppy as well.

Could someone help?

pH 7.5-8
dH: 20
gH: 11
Temp: 26'C
NH3: 0
No2: 0
No3: 5-10 ppm

 

[Andyman1]

Have you put anything new in the tank recently?

 

[Andyman1]

BTW you do realise that the Cardinal tetra's like acid water - whereas your water seems pretty alkaline - which would suit the guppies. Have you had any outbreaks of whitespot? It doesn't always show up on guppies.

 

[PJGuppies]

Sometimes the stress from the birth causes them to die...about 3 weeks ago one of my Mollies gave birth to 34 babies and she died 2 days later, with no apparent reason...Aslo when the female is older and has a bunch of batches the stress is too great for them...I have 2 female guppies that have stopped having babies I havent had babies from them in 2 months!!! I know their due date and put them in the net and nothing happens I guess they got too old to have them...I have a younger female in there now and my male wont even touch her

So I say they reason your female died was from the stress of having the babies..I am sorry to hear that...How many fry did she have?

 

[pondfreak4365]

Sorry about losing your guppies. Do you know how old they were? Life expectancy for guppies is about 2 years.

 

[abudakos]

Thanks for replying guys.

I had the guppies for over 9 months and they were fully grown when I purchased them. Judging by the time it takes them to become 'adults' (reach adult size that is), I believe the ones that died were close to 2 years of living. However, one of the female guppies that died was only 5 months old since it was born and raised in my aquarium. It didn't show any signs of stress or disease. It just died unexpectedly. I haven't made any changes inside the aquarium. Usual routine. I had a green algae bloom recently (too much plant fertilizer) but I don't think this affected my fish.

As far as the acidity of the water, I know it's hard for the cardinals but they have adapted to it quite well. I have them for a whole year and they are doing fine.

Anyhow, I have a pair of guppies left now and I will wait one more month to see how they are doing before adding new ones, although I planning to return all fish to the pet store and start playing with kribs

 

[Alien Anna]

As far as the acidity of the water, I know it's hard for the cardinals but they have adapted to it quite well. I have them for a whole year and they are doing fine.

I have some 6 year old cardinals who have been kept between pH 7 and pH 8 for almost their entire lives, since being imported.

 

[CrystalizedGuppy]

My albino and black female gave birth to some babies. Which I am currently raising....they died yesterday.They had had them the day before. I do believe it was the stress of giving birth to the babies. Because they showed no signs of disease or anything.