Guppy problems

lingking

lingking

Piscatorial psychosis (fish crazy)
Mar 23, 2005
13
0
0
51
Everett, WA
www.washingtonoutdoors.blogspot.com
I find my self in a little predicament. I have lost two female guppies recently, both came from the same shop. I have been diligent in making sure they have the best water possible. 7.0 ph no nitrates no amonia, 10% water changes every day. they just seem to stop eating, become very lethargic. Loose allot of weight. The fist one was pregnant, made her drop. (never saw one fry) and I assumed she was just recovering. The second one that died today got me worried. Even my males had no interest in her. She had a string of what I guess to be meuchus (spelling?)coming from her venteral area. I have another female in my nursery tank that is slowly becoming lethargic but I assume that is because she will be dropping soon but now I'm worried. She appears to be preggers, but not very big. I can see eye spots in her gravid spot but here size is still not as big a I would want. My guess is she will just have a small brood any time now. the other females I have are rubost and frisky with the boys. I am wondering if this could be a result of the place I puchased them or is this going to be a on running problem? The other gals from other shops seem to be ok. I heard that a little salt can make them a little healtier but that is not an option due to their tank mates.

help? :(
 
What are their tankmates?
 
I don't have any cardinals but my cories, ram, and danio all do fine in a salted tank. tsp to 5 gal is what I use. I don't maintain it consistantly but have used it for treatments without incident. You might also try Melafix and keep the lights off. Fish are less stressed when in the dark. Could any of their tank mates be picking on them?
 
DO NOT ADD SALT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cardinals are very very very senstitive to salt. I would never add salt to a tank with cardinal tetras! :mad: If you remove them then a little tiny bit would be ok. Guppies are very very supsectable to dying...I had one of my new platys die the day after it had babies, :( I was left with 12 babies though, the guppy would of had babies but they would've been eaten probably. Guppies are really hard to keep alive and not get without hundreds of diseases. Your guppy is probably gone I am sorry. :(
 
lingking said:
I find my self in a little predicament. I have lost two female guppies recently, both came from the same shop. I have been diligent in making sure they have the best water possible. 7.0 ph no nitrates no amonia, 10% water changes every day. they just seem to stop eating, become very lethargic. Loose allot of weight. The fist one was pregnant, made her drop. (never saw one fry) and I assumed she was just recovering. The second one that died today got me worried. Even my males had no interest in her. She had a string of what I guess to be meuchus (spelling?)coming from her venteral area. I have another female in my nursery tank that is slowly becoming lethargic but I assume that is because she will be dropping soon but now I'm worried. She appears to be preggers, but not very big. I can see eye spots in her gravid spot but here size is still not as big a I would want. My guess is she will just have a small brood any time now. the other females I have are rubost and frisky with the boys. I am wondering if this could be a result of the place I puchased them or is this going to be a on running problem? The other gals from other shops seem to be ok. I heard that a little salt can make them a little healtier but that is not an option due to their tank mates.

help? :(
Click to expand...
It sounds to me as if the guppies in question had internal parasites. Stringy white/clear mucousy feces is part of that. Did their feces also sometimes look segmented? The parasites actually spread in the poo. One fish will poo out the eggs of the parasites in their belly and another fish will ingest them, where they hatch and start their life cycle. The end stages are the wasting away/losing weight and not eating, then dying.

I would pay close attention to my other fish at this time. Any sign of clear to white, stringy poop and I would would soak their food in Metronidazole. It is made by Seachem and you should be able to find it at an LFS, or order it online from a place like Big Al's. You have to catch it while the fish are still eating, but just showing the signs of the parasites. Once a fish stops eating, it is usually pretty hard to treat them for this effectively.

Also, since it came up, what are your water parameters? Livebearers, contrary to popular belief, do not necessarily need salt in their tank. They prefer hard, alkaline water to salty yet soft and acidic water.
 
The water is in perfect peramiters. I had a low ph two weeks ago but thru water changes it went back to normal. The female in question right now is slowing down now. I suspect she only has a few days left. I will try to medicate them ASAP. I suspect that the internal parisite is to blame, why is it only hitting the guppies? Every one else is fine. I noticed that my nice black male is off by himself now, I suspect that he is now afflicted. Will the recomended meds have a recomended dosage for internal consumption?How long should I treat for? Will this hurt any of the pregnant females? I'm tempted to letting this cycle thru and strt over again with a steryl tank.


:mad2 :mad:
 
lingking said:
The water is in perfect peramiters. I had a low ph two weeks ago but thru water changes it went back to normal. The female in question right now is slowing down now. I suspect she only has a few days left. I will try to medicate them ASAP. I suspect that the internal parisite is to blame, why is it only hitting the guppies? Every one else is fine. I noticed that my nice black male is off by himself now, I suspect that he is now afflicted. Will the recomended meds have a recomended dosage for internal consumption?How long should I treat for? Will this hurt any of the pregnant females? I'm tempted to letting this cycle thru and strt over again with a steryl tank.
Click to expand...
When you say the water parameters are perfect, what are they exactly? The internal parasite may be affecting the guppies more because they and other livebearers seem more susceptible to it in my exoerience. I don't know if it is because they are particularly vulnerable to mouthing everything they see or what. IME tetras seem to spit just about everything but food right back out of their mouths, while livebearers, for whatever reason, seem to go ahead and eat some fish poop now and again. Yes, Metronidazole will have a recommended treatment. You simply disolve some of it in tank water, soak their flake food in it, then feed them. It shouldn't be too harmful to fish that do not show signs of being infected. It shouldn't harm the pregnant females. I think it is at least worth a shot, especially since Metro is only $4.99 from Big Al's rather than letting it ravage your fish and starting over.
 
My vile of Met reccomends 200 mg per ten gallons, I would dissolve ( easier said than done) the entire amount needed for a full tank dose in a very small quantity of water and soak the food in it for about 15 minutes. then dump the whole mess in the tank so any met that doesn't get eaten will still be in the tank. Dosing in the water column only for internal parasites is usually not a very effective way to get them killed, but in some cases it's better than nothing. MY limited experience with Met is that it is close to a perfect drug for what it is supposed to do. Overdosing is next to impossible for anyone with common sense, you could actually probably get away with 5+ times reccomended dosage without hurting your fish. It kills internal parasites well, and otherwise seems to have a largely unnoticeable effect on anything in the tank. Even if the fish ate the met powder directly it doesn't seem to hurt them. It is one of a very few meds that I actually like to use. good results, little risk.

To a Ph of 7.0 is far from perfect, unless you can achieve that with a Kh of 3+ somehow. My experience has led me to the conclusion that most water with a Kh of 3 will test in the 7.6 range, unless you are injecting Co2, I would guess that your water is very Kh defecient. I DO NOT believe that that has a lot of bearing on your current issues, but wanted to note my thoughts for future info and situations. For the record, This is my experience, not a hard fast rule of any kind.

Something that may very well have some bearing on your situation is whether or not you are lowering your Ph via some sort of acid buffer. this could lead to problems and create some stress.
Dave
 
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