Young guppy swimming frantically upside down in circles

Irksome

Fish Crazy
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I am assuming it is probably best to euthanise this fish but so far it is so fast and so erratic I can’t catch it. It has been losing weight for a few weeks. Is this likely a contagious issue? Thanks
 
Ah, the "Spiral of Death" as my parents called it. I had a lot of livebearers get it. In my experience, it isn't contagious. Occasionally, after treating with an all-in-one treatment and feeding brine shrimp/bloodworms, some would recover, though most wouldn't.
 
Ah, the "Spiral of Death" as my parents called it. I had a lot of livebearers get it. In my experience, it isn't contagious. Occasionally, after treating with an all-in-one treatment and feeding brine shrimp/bloodworms, some would recover, though most wouldn't.
Thanks for this information. I have not heard of this before. I can’t get an all-in-1 treatment at short notice so I hope none of the others are affected.
 
Buy Metronidazole and Praziquentel from (human) med store, I am pretty sure it's a parasite infection.

Next time when you buy more guppies or other livebearers put them in QT tank first and treat parasite, keep in mind that all livebearers from fish store are infected by parasite as Colin like to says.
 
Metronidazole is not available in the UK without prescription - it treats internal protozoan infections.

Praziquantel treats flat worms, but they would not cause these symptoms.
 
Metronidazole is not available in the UK without prescription - it treats internal protozoan infections.

Praziquantel treats flat worms, but they would not cause these symptoms.
Does API general cure available in the UK? because Metronidazole and Praziquantel are the ingredients of an API general cure.
 
It contains metronidazole so it cannot be sold legally in the UK without prescription. API's UK website does not list it. That does not stop people importing it from the US but it takes a while to arrive.
 
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Next time when you buy more guppies or other livebearers put them in QT tank first and treat parasite, keep in mind that all livebearers from fish store are infected by parasite as Colin like to says.
[/QUOTE]
that's not entirely true: a small percentage may have parasites and most definitely not all of them,
 
When fish start spinning through the water it is usually caused by a protozoan infection. Livebearers regularly come into the shops with external protozoan infections and the safest treatment is salt.

All livebearers should be quarantined for at least 2 weeks before being added to an established tank, and they can be treated with salt while in quarantine. Salt will also kill gill flukes and minor bacterial and fungal infections.

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Using Salt to Treat Fish Health Issues.
For some fish diseases you can use salt (sodium chloride) to treat the ailment rather than using a chemical based medication. Salt is relatively safe and is regularly used in the aquaculture industry to treat food fish for diseases. Salt has been successfully used to treat minor fungal and bacterial infections, as well as a number of external protozoan infections. Salt alone will not treat whitespot (Ichthyophthirius) or Velvet (Oodinium) but will treat most other types of protozoan infections in freshwater fishes.

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 (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rates will not affect 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.
 

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