Guppy problem

[Nepen]

Hi all,

So I bought 4 new guppies, 2 female and 2 male on Friday. The next morning one male and one female died right away and I write it off as stress (the female had babies in the bag, and the male shoed sign of stress right away).

So this morning the last two was ok and tonight my last male is having a weird symptom.

His side fin (one side) is sticking out and his gill seems not working (not moving), and his mouth seems stif. He is swimming on the top, against the current, quite still but moving about around a little.

He has no sign of bloating, no white patch, no cotton mouth, no damage to any of the fin, just the on fin sticking out, but undamage.

I tested the water today and all 0 or at least close to 0. PH is 7.4.

All my old guppies are doing fine.

Can this be just stress? I looked up guppy disease and couldn't come up with anything. What can I do? I'm moving him to a QT tank as soon as the water temperature is warm enough

Thanks.

 

[Nepen]

Can you see the sticking out fin?

 

[JohnHuff]

I think you've got a case of bad guppys. If your store has a return policy, I'd return them. I mean you should return them, not me.

 

[Dave 54]

Nephen are these new guys in QT at the moment I ask because you say your moving him to QT which can only mran you have him in with your main population ?
We dont want to see you adding something to an existing population of guppies only to have that population crash which they frequently do .
just because they are guppies doesnt ean that they stll dont have that 4 weeks in QT its the same for any fish .
Is it having difficulty in maintaining balence or has abnormal posturing, normally this is a sign of bacterial infection which can be treated with they term a proprietry Preperation which normally means talk to your fish outlet .
Good luck and remember always QT your fish no matter what they are .

rgrds

Dave

 

[Nepen]

Thank you Dave. With guppy, the qt period just never cross my mind. But you are right that it's safer that way.

The last male is dead this morning. I really think this is more of a stress related. I went to petco for my shrimp's food and came out with 4 more guppies so they were sitting in the bag in my office until I got home. The office is quite warm so I didn't think it'd be too cold for them or anything. But the female had the baby in the bag so she was way stressed. Is there a disease that cause repaid death like this? I think that'd cause by high ammonia or something but my ammonia is zero. They are from different tank at the pet store.

John, I think I'm the cause of the stress but I'm done with adding anymore new fish. So I'm not going to return the fish, driving 20 minutes for $3 is not worth it I have way too many babies and my old gal is a tough cookie and if my attempted to add more female fail then she'll have to wait for the female babies to grow up to be her friends.

The last female is having a baby right now. It's quite fun to see she drops the fry one by one. I'm not going to be surprise if the female die after this, a lot of female just doesn't make it after dropping frys. But I hope she does.

All in all I bought 4 new fish, 3 died but I have 15+ more babies from them so I think I came out alright. But I think my little shubby is haveing a snack of some of the baby lol.

 

[sissy]

could the lack of oxygen in the bag having caused the problem .I know with my fish from a supplier in NC he said to not keep them in the closed bag for more than an hour .He even put an oxygen tablet in the bag

 

[Nepen]

Thanks for the input Sissy, that could be one cause! I told her that I needed more oxygen since I'll not go directly home so she got me a bigger bag but she didn't seal it right and come to think of it the bag was soft and leaking water by the time I got home the bottom of the box I had the bag on was wet.

I didn't think much of it since people shipped fish and they would be in bag for a day or two and do fine so I thought this would be fine too.

 

[dieselplower]

I do not believe stress was the cause, or lack of oxygen. Can you tell us more about the tank and filters? Did you treat the water for chlorine etc?

 

[Nepen]

Hi diesel,
The tank is 36 gallon and the filter is Aquaclear 50 110v. The media I took from the old tank which was from my pond. I also took half the water from the old tank and mixed with the new water. The tank has been running for a week before I added these new guppies. I have 6 adult guppies and babies, one baby shubby( as big as the female guppy) and 3 corys in the tank prior.

I dechlorine the water and run the tank empty for about half a day before I put the corys in, then the shubby, then when I got the heater, the rest of my guppies. The tank got all the rocks and plants from the old tank which had been running for 5-6 weeks. I also have hornworts, water lettuces and other water plants and lots of snails. Oh and a few cherry shrimps.

I tested the water twice, last night and this morning and still got 0 ammonia, nitrite, nitrate.

What do you have in mind that might be the cause?

 

[dieselplower]

I don't know. were you able to test the ph of the water? I don't think it is oxygen because they should have recovered from that shorty after being put into the tank. Just like a person suffering from lack of oxygen recovers right when they get more air. It is possible that fish in a bag for a long period of time would suffer from ammonia poisoning. Especially with babies being born.

 

[Nepen]

The pH is 7.4. You might be right about the ammonia poisoning while in the bag with the babies being born. Didn't thought of that before but it made sense that birthing produce a lot of waste. The last standing female had babies the other day and she's doing fine, eating and active. Hoping that she keeps it up!

The funny thing is, no male show any interest in her at all, they pretty much left her alone. I guess that's good for her so she can rest a bit.

 

[Dave 54]

Thank you Dave. With guppy, the qt period just never cross my mind. But you are right that it's safer that way.

The last male is dead this morning. I really think this is more of a stress related. I went to petco for my shrimp's food and came out with 4 more guppies so they were sitting in the bag in my office until I got home. The office is quite warm so I didn't think it'd be too cold for them or anything. But the female had the baby in the bag so she was way stressed. Is there a disease that cause repaid death like this? I think that'd cause by high ammonia or something but my ammonia is zero. They are from different tank at the pet store.

John, I think I'm the cause of the stress but I'm done with adding anymore new fish. So I'm not going to return the fish, driving 20 minutes for $3 is not worth it I have way too many babies and my old gal is a tough cookie and if my attempted to add more female fail then she'll have to wait for the female babies to grow up to be her friends.

The last female is having a baby right now. It's quite fun to see she drops the fry one by one. I'm not going to be surprise if the female die after this, a lot of female just doesn't make it after dropping frys. But I hope she does.

All in all I bought 4 new fish, 3 died but I have 15+ more babies from them so I think I came out alright. But I think my little shubby is haveing a snack of some of the baby lol.

Nepen I cannot see a female guppy kick out the amounts of ammonia to do that let's look more towards the condition they were living in whe you bought them .
We have a rule of thumvb for any of the fish weve bought even back in our tropical days that to this day has stood us proud with no problems {(be there so much as a split fi in a tank theen dont buy).
As to leaving them in the bag at the office many of us forget these fish were once shipped 1,000 of miles to get to us so I cant see leaving them in the bags the culprit here .
I dont know how you buy your fish in th US (store or shop) but here in the UK the /US styled pet stores have a very bad track record when it comes to the health of their fish so we tend to stick more to the more specialised Tropical fish shops where you know both the owners and staff have taken the nesessary qualifications .
We have one shop here in plymouth run by a man who has a bachelors degree in fish sciences (never have we lost any fish in his shop or any of the others).
I'd say the best bet is perhaps you missed something that the eye couldnt pick up .

rgrds

Dave

 

[Nepen]

Hi Dave,
I bought these fish from Petco. I looked closely to the fish in the tank and they were all active, very little tail damaged ones, no fish gapping for air or acting strange near the surface. I actually even told the staff that their fish looked a lot better than Petsmart where I bought my other fish.

But if theya re sick, wont it take time for them to show symptom then die? not just drop dead over night?

When I got home I put the bag in the tank for about 30-45 minutes before I net them out to the tank. did I do anything wrong here?

 

[Dave 54]

Do you have any idea when these guppys came into the store, they themselves should Qt them prior to sale to the fish keeping public.
In the british Aquatic trade tanks are marked that these fish are not for sale due to Quarentine , they remain so for a number of weeks prior to them being put fowards for sale.
I doubt these big stores do that as its all down to the mighty profit that they must make for their share holders.

rgrds

Dave

 

[callingcolleen1]

I got tons of guppies, they keep having more and more babies and now they are breeding like crazy again. When I first got the fancy guppies, they killed off lots of my wild guppies as they all carry guppy disease. I think it was bred into the fancy guppies to prevent them from mating with the wild guppies, and then the gene used to spread to the next generation of babies guppies, and you would lose all the fancy guppies and end up with all wild guppies. That was twenty five years ago, now last year I discovered that the new improved fancy guppies can mate with the wild guppies, but then the wild guppies would all die after mating with the fancy guppies and I ended up with just fancy guppies. I do still have wild guppies in a totally seperate tank, and I have had those wlld guppies now for 25 years, so I have to be careful not to mix them up again.

When I first bought fancy guppies, the adults did not last too long and all died one by one, but I did get a bunch of baby guppies that have now grown up to be nice fancy guppies. Guppies do not have a long life span to begin with, so once you get a bunch constantly breeding all the time, then you will always have a full tank of guppies. I keep live plants in my tanks like hornwort, duck weed, and angel hair.