Question with Dead Guppies? Pic included(not for the weak)

[neo]

Guppies with holes Pics included
Hello,

My mom just sent me some pics of her guppies. She doesnt know what happend. She found them dead in the tank. Is this a disease or did her ramhorn snails? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


When tank was tested. Everything was normal except stress level.

Tank set up all in 30gal:
Guppies
1 swordtail
mollies
neo tetras
2 pleco
several ramshorn snails
http://groups.msn.com/TTC3/shoebox.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=158


Bonnie

[BigFishDude]

That looks like your guppies died and they fish or the snails decided to make a snack of them. I could be wrong about that tho.

[a_free_bird73]

It looks like snails had a good meal

[kveeti]

Looks like any fish that has died and hasn’t been found right away. They decompose awfully quickly and anything alive in the tank will peck at them. The holes aren’t what the guppies died of, they are just an effect of having died. How long has she had them? How long between the time your mom last saw them swimming around until they were noticed dead and pulled out of the tank? Were there any symptoms before their demise (lethargic, colour loss, etc.)?

[Rocketman]

Word Kveeti

[neo]

Hello

thanks for the response. I havent talked to her yet but from what she told me the fish were fine the night before. She has had alot of trouble keeping fish. She had a mama sword have babies and then die. She had been keeping the swords in a 10 gal while still babies. Here a month ago she moved them to her 30gal and they died quickly. Within a couple of weeks. She has had lots of guppies die. She does water changes every week to week and a half. One thing she did tell me she did was rinsed her filters with regular tap water. Told her she is killing her biological bacteria. So thinking her tank never was fully cycled.:( She is now doing it the right way!:)

Ill post again today. With an update.

Thanks
bonnie

[Jhereg10]

I would think that if she has been washing her filters in tap water, that would sure as heck put a kink in the works. Also depends whether her tapwater has chlorine or chloramine. A lot of the chlorine "offgasses" when it sprays out of the tap. But if it has chloramine, that won't offgass coming out of the tap, so the bacteria are getting a pretty nasty dose of something that is specifically designed to kill bacteria.

So I'd guess, yeah, she was killing off some (a lot?) of her bacteria every time she cleaned the filter, and getting ammonia and nitrite spikes because of it. Though of course, there could be other factors. Temperature swings, for one.

-David C.

[delmore]

I assume that you know this, testing for NitrIte (not nitrAte) will let her determine if the tank is cycled.

If she does water changes nitrate shouldn't be a problem.

[ChilDawg]

2 plecos? What types? Those are probably overloading the filtration!

Also, fancy guppies are oft-raised on Oriental fish farms in seawater-strength salinity...fin rot is often a killer of guppies kept in FW...

[Dragon_Lord_Tia]

Originally posted by Rocketman
Word Kveeti

Rocketman whats that meen ive seen you post it in other threads

[Rocketman]

What does "word" mean?

Basically, it's just Urban Language, (also referred to as "Ghetto.") It mean, "I agree." One can also say, "True 'dat," or, "Word up."

Haven't you seen Eminiems, "8 Mile"? I live about 40 minutes out of inner-city Detroit, (Where the film took place, if you didn't know.)