Fry from sick guppy

[Winged]

I noticed yesterday morning that one of my female guppies looked really strange. There was a white patch on her back. I took her out of the tank and put her in one by herself to keep an eye on her. By last night, it was looking worse, with pieces of skin hanging off. It kind of looks a bit fungusy. The weirdest thing I've ever seen.

Then, before I even had a chance to post a question specifically about her, she has fry! A lot of fry, probably the biggest drop I've ever seen. They were all on the floor of the tank, which I've never seen my guppy fry do before. I moved all the fry and the mother out of the tank (a 2 gallon tank) to a 5 gallon bucket. This morning, the fry number has slightly reduced, but they are swimming around up at the top.

Now, my questions. Will these fry have whatever the momma has? If I need to treat her, will they survive the treatment? The fry seem healthy enough this morning, but they are still in the bucket with my sick guppy, as I'm hesitant to move them to the fry tank with the rest of my fry.

I will try to get some pics of the guppy, but I don't know how successful I will be. It started out as a white patch on her back, progressed to looking a bit fuzzy looking with skin hanging off. I never saw an injury on her. She seems mostly active, maybe hiding a little more than usual. She has not made much attempt to eat the fry, which she usually does.

 

[huffmagx]

Sometimes when the mothers are really ill they will drop their fry prematurely most of the time the fry survive as long as they eat after the yolk sacks are gone.
As for the injury it sounds a bit like a fungus from some sort of trauma hard to say for sure ... I'd treat the mom and if possible leave the fry out of it but I wouldn't put them in with your other fry if you have an option until you know for sure they are healthy.

 

[Winged]

Okay, here are some pictures of the sick guppy. The skin and fuzzy part came off when I netted her. What's left looks a bit raw. I also noticed some on her underside. It's a little fuzzy looking. I couldn't get a picture of that though. Here are the pics I did get.







While I was taking these pictures, I noticed her gills look a bit red.

Anybody have an idea of what's wrong with her?

 

[Winged]

Sometimes when the mothers are really ill they will drop their fry prematurely most of the time the fry survive as long as they eat after the yolk sacks are gone.
As for the injury it sounds a bit like a fungus from some sort of trauma hard to say for sure ... I'd treat the mom and if possible leave the fry out of it but I wouldn't put them in with your other fry if you have an option until you know for sure they are healthy.

The fry aren't premature. She'd been looking ready to drop them for several days before she did. These fry don't look premature.

 

[KarlTh]

It looks like she's got stuck on something and raised some scales. It doesn't look like a disease, and absolutely nothing like a fungus of any kind.

 

[excuzzzeme]

Fuzzy scales (fungus/rust-looking) may in fact be caused by "Velvet".
Segregate the guppy from the fry so they don't become infected and try the following:
Raise water temperature
Dim lights for several days
Add aquarium salt
Treat with copper sulphate for ten days
Discontinue carbon filtration during treatment

 

[KarlTh]

No sign of velvet on that fish. If it has a bacterial infection raising the temperature could be fatal.

 

[Winged]

It looks like she's got stuck on something and raised some scales. It doesn't look like a disease, and absolutely nothing like a fungus of any kind.

If I had found her looking the way she does now, I would agree. However, that's not how I found her. As I said in my first post, in the morning, she had a white patch on her back. It was flat, not raised up or anything. By late afternoon, the white patched had become fuzzy looking and looked as though skin was hanging off (whether or not it was skin, I don't know, I'm just stating what it looked like). It reminded me of a fungus, but again, that's just what I think it looked like, not what I think it is. When I netted her to put her in something to take her picture, the fuzzy part came off, thus the reason the pics don't show it.

I also don't think it's velvet. I've seen fish infected with velvet, and that's not what she looks like.

The fry are acting like normal, healthy baby guppies, but I won't be putting them in with my other fry. I am going to separate her from the fry tomorrow and monitor both fry and mother. I'll see if I can get better pictures of her tomorrow and will post them if I can.

 

[KarlTh]

The fuzz will be excessive skin slime from the injury to the scales; infections do not slide off mechanically.

Fungal infections appear as hyphae; long grey cottony threads which grow to half an inch long in almost no time. 99% of aquarium "fungi" are actually bacterial infections, usually columnaris. True fungal infections are very rare IME.