Dying Guppies

murphey

I've had a tropical tank for around 5 months. I started with 4 platies, 5 guppies and a fighter fish. All was good until around 4 weeks ago, when the guppies started dying. They'd swim around nose down, then after a day of two they'd start floating, then die a few days later. I'm down to two guppies(not including 10-15 six or so week old babies, that so far look fine), and they are hanging around the tiop of the water, not looking too well. The platies and fighter are fine.

There have been two recent changes that have me wondering if they may be the cause, as the guppies started dying around the same time- we ran out of rain water so have been using town water, which I add stuff to to get rid of the chlorine and chloromine, and I introduced a clown loach to the tank. He seems fine, is happily swimming around going about his business, but I'm wondering if maybe he is carrying an illness that is only affecting the guppies.

My tank is around 70 litres, and I don't test the water(I will buy a test kit during the week). I change around 25-30% of the water weekly, but have been changing a bit more the last couple of weeks.

Any ideas what could be wrong?

Mooo

This could be a number of things..could be a bacterial disease..a viral disease, a nasty paracite, or worms..You need to work out what all the symptoms are ..and do your research..many things you mentioned..could be the problem..
I'd add more air..if you don't have any running already ..

Brengun

Your town water is probably a much higher pH than your rainwater. Try doing smaller water changes more often.

murphey

Thanks for the replies.

I haven't tested the water yet, but I've had no more deaths since the last two adult guppies died the day I first posted. The baby guppies are fine, as are the other fish.

Mooo

Great to hear Murphey =D>

ryohll

It may not be something your doing perhaps just natural old age of the guppies? as far as my experience goes Guppies perfer water in the higher ph range so tap water ph maybe fine i usually settle and condition my water for a good two hours and lower the ph to 7 neutral before putting it in not because of the guppies but rather my cardinal tetras

Taffy

I previously had 4 females and 1 male, but I lost 2 females somehow. So to take the stress off the remaining females and keep the male happy, I bought 5 new females from aquarium warehouse about a month ago.

This week I lost 2 females, both who had rather large tummy's at time of death. I couldn't tell if they were pregnant or not, but they were both part of the new lot from aquarium warehouse. Does anybody have any ideas as to what could have caused this?

It's weird that my new fish are dying and my old ones are the tough ones.

Doug

one thing to remember about guppies is that they are horribly inbred and they are now very weak. Most guppies from fish shops are mass produced and have had the same breeding colony going for years. sure you get nice colours on some but 50-70% are sold as feeder fish because they are useless as feature fish. if you are looking to buy guppies my advice is to look for a dedicated breeder who knows the value of crossing bloodlines. you will get better fish and less deaths.

Mooo

Quarantine, comes to mind.
Did you add all the new guppies from the shop directly to the tank?

Taffy

Thanks Doug, I didn't actually know fish had that sort of problem.

Hey Mooo, no, I did the floaty bag for 15 mins, then scooped some of my tank water into the bag and waited about half an hour before I scooped them into the tank with a net. I read that we should never mix shop tank water with our own.

Mooo

Yeah this is correct, shop waters often can carry many problems for your tank...
One sick fish or sickness in the water can ruin your plans overnight..
Always quarantine new fish and never float the bag & never add the bag water to your tank ...Go have a read of the acclimatising process in our beginner section ..
There are NO short cuts when keeping fish