Tail Down Guppy

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Mark Powis

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Request Help

Tank size: 34L
pH:7.6
ammonia: 0
nitrite:0
nitrate:0
kH:10/15
gH:14
tank temp:24

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior): swimming tail down majority of the time burn still has the ability to swim normally for food. Eyes appear very black.

Volume and Frequency of water changes:20-30% changes done weekly

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: micro-lift aqua balance weekly
Fluval bio enhancer weekly and fluval water conditioner in water change. O.1% salt added.

Tank inhabitants: 5x male guppies and 4 x male endlers 3x amano shrimp.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Any chance of a picture and short 30 second video of the fish?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

If the video is too big for this website, post it on YouTube and copy & paste the link here. We can view it at YouTube. If you are using a mobile phone to take the video, have the phone horizontal so the video takes up the entire screen. If you have the phone vertical, you get video in the middle and black on either side.

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How long has the tank been set up for?
How long have you had the fish for?

What sort of filter do you have?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

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Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until the problem is identified or resolved.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Add salt.
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate will affect some plants. The lower dose rate will not affect plants.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

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Black eyes in guppies is normally a territorial thing with dominant males having black eyes to intimidate smaller weaker males.
 

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