White film on male guppy?

W

wendamus

Crazy Guppy Lady with serious MTS
Jul 17, 2008
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0
0
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Los Angeles
Hi,

I am a newbie, so I've been really careful. I cycled my tank for 6 weeks until my water testing showed everything to be perfect (except my Ph was a little high, I've been bringing it down slowly)

I got 5 guppies, 2 males and 3 females, and a Pleco. I've had them for about 2 1/2 weeks now, and the bigger male is looking ... raggedy. His gorgeous full tail is looking smaller and kinda messy, and he's got kind of a white film all over him.

I've looked at the pictures of ich, and I honestly don't think that's what it is, there are no defined 'spots' and it's only affecting him, not the others. Two of the girls are obviously pregnant, so you'd think they'd be more susceptible, but everyone else seems fine.

Any suggestions? I tried to take pics, but I apparently don't have the camera for quick moving closeups.

Thanks!

P.S. I don't have a quarantine tank or I'd move him out... :-(
 
I'm slowly dropping the Ph because it was high, between 8.0 to 8.2 (those test kits are hard to read exactly). I'm using API Ph Down, attempting to drop the Ph .2 per day at the most to not stress the fish.

It's not fuzzy, he just looks kinda white and dull, with some obvious areas that are more covered than others. His tail is even more raggedy, I'm not sure if he's rubbing up against things, if the others are picking on him because he's sick, or if the illness is affecting his tail.

Since he's looking so much worse, so I've started salting the tank and raising the temp slowly to treat it as if it's ich. Do you have any other suggestions? I could always isolate him in a couple of gallons of water, I have another air pump for my hermit crab's humidifier I could borrow for a while, and my house temp stays pretty consistent at around 78.
 
Hello Wendamus,

It sound like he is suffering from fin rot. NEVER and I mean NEVER keep so much males and so little females. The reason for this is matting rights. The ratio I have always observed with guppies is 1 male to 10 females, and I have never had a single problem with their health. Guppies are very hardie fish, they will eat anything, and I do mean anything I have feed mine live baby grass hopers, to flies, to spiders, basicaly anything that hits their water is gone man. However they will love ALWAYS BLOOD WORMS, which it's basicaly the larva form of mosquitos, this is their number one food source in the wild. Use some antibiotics to cure his fin rot, and add more females, with three males, you should have at least 30 females, they will love you for it.
 
OK. You've been sold the pH myth. Read this well - FISH DON'T CARE ABOUT pH. It's true. There is not a shred of evidence to support the belief that they require particular pHs, or even that large changes will harm them; a planted tank without CO2 injection will see large swings every 24 hours as the plants use the CO2 during the day and then it rebuilds up overnight. It doesn't harm the fish. pH shock does not exist; what harms fish moved from low to high pH or vice versa is the big changes in Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) which generally accompany such changes (i.e. acid water is generally soft, alkaline water hard). Throw the pH down in the bin. Your pH is absolutely fine; you can breed discus in pH 8, never mind hardwater fish like guppies.

Salt and heat won't treat this problem; indeed, if it's columnaris (which it could be) raising the temp above 24C could be rapidly fatal - columnaris loves heat. I think it could well be columnaris, so I'd be lowering the temperature and treating with an antibacterial med. Aeromonas and Pseudomonas could be involved as well.

Oh, and I've kept guppies for over twenty years. You can keep males and females in virtually any ratios. These recommendations to keep unequal ratios always make me ask where all these extra females are meant to come from - guppies themselves produce even numbers so if everyone took that advice we'd have loads of males no-one wanted.
 
This is what killed all of my guppies, columnaris, and caused me to lose about 20 dollars in medications and fish. Now, I've just given up on them entirely. I hope you do better than I did.
 
off the bat, it's a very bad idea to tell someone to run out and buy 27 more fish for a tank that 1. has health issues and 2. we don't know the size of it. i have never in my time here or on the other 2-3 forums i belong to heard of more than a 1 male to 2-3 female ratio of livebearers anyway. 10 females per male is excessive, and imo - for someone who just wants a nice tank to look at, having a ton of plain female guppies isn't going to be very exciting. the males aren't colorful because the females care if they are blue or pink or snakeskin, we make them colorful because we want to look at them and enjoy them. if i was going to have a tank full of dull silvery fish, i'd rather fill the tank with heterandria formosa and make some money.
 
Thanks everyone for the advice. I still don't know what was wrong with my male. He died the same night I posted the question. I kept the water salty and the temp warm. (If I had any ich in my tank, it should be gone in a few more days, right?)

None of the other fish have seemed to have any trouble. Both pregnant females appear to have aborted, probably due to the stress of the saltwater and heat? I am pretty sure they weren't ready to give birth, but their dark spots above their anal fin (which was growing slowly over the last two weeks) has disappeared, and there's no babies, or sign that there ever were babies.

In any case, I have one more male, and I'm going to give my tank a few more weeks to stabilize and make sure nothing else pops up.

Here's a total newbie question... If more fish show up with fin rot, and I want to treat them with antibiotics, do I need to go to a vet, or get it from the pet store?

Thanks all for the help.

P.S. My tank is only 10 gallons, and has 1 male now, three females, and a small pleco that is voracious and gets supplemented with 1/2 an algae tab every day, plus I'm experimenting with veggies. Do you think it's safe to add another male once the tank proves it's healthy again? I test the water weekly, and so far ammonia, nitrites and nitrate are quite stable. Thanks for the info on Ph, I won't worry about it anymore.
 
slowly remove the salt through your regular water changes. unless they actually show ich spots, they don't need it, and it can harm the pleco over time.

the female guppies may have simply reabsorbed the babies because they didn't feel it was safe to have them at that time.

antibiotics for fish can be found at the pet store.

you could add more guppies, probably another trio as long as you don't go out of your way to save the babies. that's where an overstocking issue occurs eventually.

do some research on the pleco you have, very very few of them can be kept in a 10g tank. if you bought it for $2-4 and it wasn't labeled with a specific name, it's more then likely a species that reaches 10-24 inches.
 
No spots; not ich. This was, I'm pretty sure, columnaris and keeping the water temperature warm probably sealed the poor bugger's fate.
 
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