hmmm guppy problems
- Thread starter meandthetanks
- Start date
yes it could be,i hadnt thought about that,she brought them from her local pet shop,all from same tank,so it could be,would that explain why the babies could be surviving and the adults arent? as far as i know the females are all ok,but they did come from a different shop as far as im aware. anyway,all 5 are swimming around happily again now-im sure they are doing this on purpose,just to irritate me!!!
well alls still well this morning,maybe the ones that died were just weaker fish,i dont know,but the 5 left are doing really well,the fry are thriving and growing well,the largest has now turned bright yellow, just hope it turns out to be a male not a female as im rehoming all females.
7.5 is high for a guppy to tolerate. With all the moving and the massive WC I would think they went into shock. Also guppies are not long-lived if there has been too much in-breeding going on. (which I am sure you have no way of knowing how much). Good luck!
There could be a number of causes involved. First, guppies have approximately a two year life span. If they live longer they usually start to develop a sway in their backs. You friend bought these fish from a pet shop. It is quite likely you have no idea as to their true ages. Age combined with the relocation stress could explain the die off of adults but not young fish.
Another factor that could be combining with the above is water differences. Water parameters vary fom location to location. So even a few miles could produce very different water. I am not saying bad water just different.
A temperature change would effect older fish more than fry. Perhaps this was a part of it.
Charlie
Another factor that could be combining with the above is water differences. Water parameters vary fom location to location. So even a few miles could produce very different water. I am not saying bad water just different.
A temperature change would effect older fish more than fry. Perhaps this was a part of it.
Charlie
thanks for all your help and ideas,the problem 'seems' to have sorted itself, they are still flashing occassionally,its mainly just 1 of the adult males doing this though,but they are all behaving quite normally now. would the ph be a problem for neon dwarf rainbows?
Nonsense. There are very few commonly kept aquarium fish which would be bothered by a pH of 7.5, and guppies are most certainly not amongst them. I don't think I've ever consistently had a pH below 7.5 and I've kept a lot of fish far more intolerant of alkaline conditions than guppies. Cardinals, Angelfish, Corys, for example. Guppies I have bred in their hundreds in water of pH 8.5. In fact, it's worth saying that fish care very little about pH within very wide boundaries; so-called "pH shock" is usually actually osmotic shock, caused by going from high TDS (Total Dissolved Solids), and generally alkaline, water to low TDS, generally acid water, or vice versa. There is way too much fuss made and importance given to pH, and nothing like enough to TDS.
Moreover, Guppies are in the genus Poecilia which is generally found in moderately hard alkaline water, although guppies themselves are found in almost any conditions. IME, they are more likely to suffer in soft acid water than in hard alkaline conditions. Their close relatives, mollies, are far more sensitive in this regard; their ideal water is very hard and will tend to have a pH around 8 to 8.5.
Well Karlth beat me to it. I have water that runs about 7.6 to 7.8 depending on the time of year and my tap water starts at a TDS of around 225 ppm. Hard water and high pH is the norm in my tanks because of this. My endler population has gone from 10 fish to 2 full tanks since last October and of course I don't keep them with guppies. I do have some guppies in the community tank but the angels control their population explosion pretty well in that tank. The mollies also have no success expanding in there but I isolated one in a 29 of her own for 2 weeks and now have about 30 nice fry from the molly in that tank. I can't buy the story of 7.5 pH being high for livebearers. In my high pH hard water, the only robustly healthy fish are the livebearers. The angels do OK as do rasboras, gold barbs, glowlights, rainbow cichlids, zebra danios, kribensis and a variety of cories but the livebearers really shine.
thanks for the update,i thought the ph would be ok but im fairly new to the whole fishkeeping thing,especially guppies. so my ph is ok at 7.5. im still thinking the ones that died were weak,the others are still doing really well,still the odd flash now and again through the sand but apart from that alls well. fry growing well,and the biggest of them went to the surface to eat for the first time today,i know i was going to feed them off but im just so attatched to them now lol! at what age/size is it possible to sex them properly? any females are going to my friend and im keeping any males,so im hoping its a kind of 50/50 of each. there are around 20 fry in there now,so that would hopefully give me 15 or so in total. i love coming down to check the tank first thing in the morning, it seems the fry change so much over the space of 1 night!
