[Help please] Guppies dieing extremely fast

[Servitude]

Hey guys, been on the forums a little now, and have learnt many awesome things.

But recently, i am boggled at my guppy tank.

They have been fine for the last couple of months, large numbers good activity etc, but in the last day 6~ died, and i am confused at what it could be? A 30% water change was done in the last day, and not sure if it could be that, we have a filter running. The tank contains neon tetra's, guppies and 3-5 bristlenose.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks for reading.

[Servitude]

Just had a look at the water, it could have been slightly warmer than usual (28-30 degrees), could that have been it?

activity of the surviving guppies is that they are grouped and only staying at the surface of the tank.

[BikBok]

to help the experts (which is not me!) they will need to know if you added water conditioner/dechlorinator.. and the water parameters like pH, Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate .

If you don't have those tests kits , its worth gettign when you can.. i had no idea my nitrates could creep up despite good regular water changes before I got my nitrate test.

What about aeration,, is the water well filtered/aerated? If they're all hanging at the top sounds liek they need oxygen.. are there gills a normal colour? ammonia can cause more red/pink than normal gills.

[BikBok]

oh, and increased temp does decrease available oxygen too but the temp in itself shouldn't be the problem.

[jim r]

Is it your males/females or both?

[ryanjury]

What symptoms (if any) were the fish who died showing?

[Servitude]

Both males and females have died, tank contains 3-4 bristle, some neon tetras. Majority have passed away now, neon tetras seemed have to have lost a lot of their colour, saw some of the guppies have a little degeneration on their tale, it might have been too late now

[jim r]

Are any of them still alive? If yes then I would be transferring them to another container of some sort as soon as possible.

[Servitude]

I have removed the remaining fish, but they arn't being very active, not sure if it was the tank or filter. Still very puzzled, and not sure how to investigate. Will report back on how they are going, if not mistaken it was a couple of guppies and tetras left.

[pink_fish]

Can you describe the behaviour the sick guppies are displaying?

[Servitude]

some and majority just hovered close to the top of the water, not much activity, there was the occasional ones looking very sickly at the bottom of the tank by the rocks. The Neon tetra's seemed to have lost a little bit of colour, they became quite faded.

Unfortunately, we couldn't save them all, our beautiful community tank of about 20+ guppies got wiped out in 3 days

[pink_fish]

some and majority just hovered close to the top of the water, not much activity, there was the occasional ones looking very sickly at the bottom of the tank by the rocks. The Neon tetra's seemed to have lost a little bit of colour, they became quite faded.

Unfortunately, we couldn't save them all, our beautiful community tank of about 20+ guppies got wiped out in 3 days

Sorry to hear that you lost them all – that's horrible. I recently had a similar experience with a bunch of guppies – I figured out that they must have had the 'shimmies' (apparently guppies are quite prone to this weird disorder) – which might have been what yours had too. Fish with the shimmies hover near the water's surface, their fins are clamped and they wave or 'shimmy' on the spot without really moving. When they do swim, they swim awkwardly. They lose their appetite, their fins get raggedy and finrot can start to dig in, and eventually die after a few days.

I did some research when mine had this (and I'll be darned now if I can find the particular website that had the useful info, sorry! – if I find it I'll post the link.). Anyway, it's is linked to fish stress – i.e. any big change that the fish go through is liable to cause them stress (like moving tanks, sudden water chemistry change, sudden lack of oxygen, etc. – apparently overfeeding can do it to them too!, or any combination of these things). In my case, it was a heater that suddenly decided it wasn't going to turn off and it nearly cooked them all (and when the water warms up, the oxygen levels drop!). I lost quite a few, but luckily I found out what to do so that I didn't lose them all:

1) Try to figure out what caused the stress and make sure it doesn't happen again (check water chemistry, check heater, etc. – remember when making any changes to your tank, don't do it quickly – this causes fish stress.)

2) Do a large-ish water change – 30-40%. Make sure the water you add in is of the same pH and temperature as what is in the tank (to avoid any more stress).

3) Add more oxygen (use an airstone) – if you've already got one, add another. If the fish are hovering near the surface they're often doing so because they feel a lack of air.

4) Stop feeding them for a few days – they probably won't be interested when they are sick, anyway, and any food you put in will just dirty up the tank.

5) Check for finrot/fungus – when the fish's immunity is down, these often set in. Dose if signs of either of these grebblies are seen.

6) Do a 20% water change _every day_ for 4–5 days.

7) When they start perking up you can feed them again – just a very small amount to begin with (in case it was overfeeding that made them shimmy in the first place).

I did all these things, and I'm happy to say, managed to save just under half of my fishys (which was great all things considered – some of them really did look like they were done for). Anyway, I hope this info may be of use/help at some stage for you – good luck with the new fish you get!

[Servitude]

Thanks for that, i did feel it was the heater, but from memory we never adjusted it (eg everything had not been changed and all was well). I am suspecting however now though, that it could be the filter we are using, we cleaned the tank out, and put in soem fish and they started to get Fin Rot extremely fast, we removed them as soon as we could, applied melafix and they are looking much better. I will have to look at the filter it could be that??? Your description of shimmies looks like that was exactly it. Hope others learn from this also!

[pink_fish]

When you cleaned the tank out, did you throw out all the old water and replace it with fresh? If so, this might have been the problem – the chemistry of the 'new' water could have been very different to the chemistry of the old water in the tank, which could have stressed the fish out. One of the main things to check is the pH – I myself have had problems with this. The pH of your 'old' tank water could have been quite different to the 'fresh' water you added. Over time, as a general rule, the pH of water in a setup tank tends to get slowly lower due to the build up of fish waste and also if you've got any wood in your tank. Water from the tap will almost certainly have different pH from the water in your tank (as well as other chemical differences) – for example, the water out of my tap has a pH of 7.4 and most of my tanks hover around a pH of 7. I've read that a pH change all at once of more than .2 can be very stressful for fish. First of all, don't change all the water in your tank – even when things go wrong, generally you'd never change more than 50% of your water at one time (because of the above mentioned issues). Second, make sure that the water you do add to your tank is chemically similar to the water already in the tank – i.e. make sure you remove the chlorine (use a water ager) and check the pH – adjust the 'new' water to match the pH of the water in your tank using an adjuster from your LFS.

Also, when you clean a filter, you must be careful to really only rinse it and the media out using nothing but old tank water. If you 'clean' it thoroughly, this will kill all the good bacteria and then you might end up with the waste in your tank not being broken down safely, then you end up with nasty chemicals in the tank which will cause problems – could this have been the problem?