Whirling guppy

Familyfishny

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Hi folks, one of that batch of guppies in rough shape has started having spasms of tumbling/whirling. For the last few weeks, his tail has been drooping, and now he intermittently somersaults or goes into a tumbling dive. He seems disoriented for a bit after each attack. He has been eating well and maintained a healthy weight. I moved 2 fry from the hospital tank to the main tank and put him in the little hospital tank (cycled, 3.5 gal, heater, waterfall filter) with a scant tablespoon dissolved salt and a little Seachem Stability in case the big water change b/w the fry and the sick guppy messed up the cycling.

Is there anything else I can do for this fish? Would you recommend treatment, euthanasia, wait and see? How do I clean the hospital tank after this fish? Should I be worried that the two remaining adult guppies and nine fry of two ages will catch this in the main tank?

Thanks for any advice you can provide. The little guy looks miserable, and I’m worried the other guppies might be headed for the same fate.

Main tank: 37g, heater 79 F, bubble wall and filter
Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 2.5, pH7.8
2 adult, 2 juvenile, 7 new baby guppies (born today!)
3 bronze corys, I pleco ~3”
 
When fish spin, spiral or barrel role through the water, they have an issue with the brain. It is usually caused by a bacterial, viral or protozoan infection in the brain, with protozoan infections being the most common.

It is normally caused by a dirty tank/ filter and lack of water changes, which allow harmful disease organisms to build up and start affecting the fish.

The sick fish might die but the treatment below should stop it spreading to others.

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DO THE FOLLOWING TO TREAT THEM.
Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt, (see directions below).

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium 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, Bettas & 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 (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

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.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.
 
Spinning guppy videos:
and
. In the second video the clearest example is between 30 sec and the end of the 38 sec video.

I've moved the guppy into our 3.5 gal hospital tank. It is very ill. It can rest, but can't swim much without going into a spasm of circling. It doesn't look like whirling disease, which seems to be more constant and involve a nose-down whirl; this is more of a spasmodic, random movement. If Kanaplex is the right medication, I'll order it (not sure if the fish will be alive when it arrives, but I'm game to try). He's in 2T/20Lish salt right now, and it's not helping at all. 50% water change daily in the hospital tank, rinsed the filter in tank water during change (it's newish, and there's no substrate in the hospital tank).

Would General Cure help with protozoan infection? Or API FIn & Body Cure (doxycycline hyclate)? Those are the only two locally available fish meds.
 
doxycyclene and kanamycin *kanaplex) are antibiotics that only treat bacterial infections. The fish does not have a bacterial infection.

it is more likely to be an external protozoan infection and salt should help. otherwise look for a medication containing malachite green
 
Do you have a filter in there? If you do, he may not like the flow from the air bubbles.
 
Word on the street is that it's a virus. I don't know if anyone has confirmed it, but friends with pet stores say they see it often with imported guppies. It must spread, but it rarely seems to hit entire tanks. They euthanize immediately as there's no cure or recovery rate, and the risk of spread is there.
 
Well, he has been in salt of increasing salinity for about five days now (up to somewhere around 3T/20L), and continues to decline. Given that he is a live bearer, can I medicate with salt in the water? I’m not sure he will still be around after the suggested slow desalination (looks like it will take several days?)
 
Depending on the medication, but yes you can normally add chemical medications while using salt. But make sure there is plenty of aeration and don't overdose or you can kill the fish.

What did you plan on adding?

Post another video before adding anything else.

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To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

If you have big rocks or driftwood in the tank, remove these before measuring the height of the water level so you get a more accurate water volume.

You can use a permanent marker to draw a line on the tank at the water level and put down how many litres are in the tank at that level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "FishForum.net Calculator" under "Useful Links" at the bottom of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating with chemicals or it will adsorb the medication and stop it working. You do not need to remove the carbon if you use salt.
 

What I have is metonidazole and praziquantel (General Cure), which is aimed at parasites. If it's skin flukes it will help. The LFS doesn't stock any malachite green medications. The salt hasn't helped, so maybe it isn't the external protozoans? If it's a virus, nothing I do is going to help, but he's in the hospital tank where he can't infect the other fish. If it's an internal parasite it seems like a medicated food would be best? I remember seeing somewhere in the forum that someone had a source for medicated food, but can't find it now.

The fish is weakening, and I'm thinking of treatment as a Hail Mary- it might help, and I don't have any other solutions for the little guy.
 
It's not an internal issue.

The fish might have something irritating the skin or a neurologic issue (possibly caused by a virus, bacterial or protozoan infection in the brain. There's not much you can do about neurologic issues.

The General Cure medication treats tapeworm and internal protozoan parasites and is unlikely to help with this issue.

Internal bacterial infections would have killed the fish by now and the infected fish will usually swell up overnight, stop eating and do a stringy white poop. So it's not that.

If the pet shop has a medication with formaldehyde and acriflavine in, that might help. Those 2 ingredients kill most microscopic things in water.

Copper can also be used to kill external protozoans if Malachite green isn't available. Malachite Green sometimes goes under the name Victoria Green.

If none of that helps, then euthanise the fish.
 

Thank you Colin. I finally got a good picture of the fish doing the whirling behavior. I found something with malachite green, which will be delivered next Saturday. It might be kinder to euthanize him, though, than wait.
 
You need to reduce the current in the tank, it's a bit strong for the fish and the fish is in a weakened state of health. You can see this where the fish has a fit and then drifts towards the ornament.
 
It looks neurological, something to do with the brain. There's probably not much you can do about it. If it happens regularly, euthanise the fish because it is causing it some stress.
 

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