# Weird Guppy Problem



## Nick (Aug 2, 2006)

Hey everyone,

This has completely stumped me! Okay, So i've always had 2 guppy's even when i had my 10 gallon. Then I bought three more guppy's a few weeks ago. usually when ever I buy new fish ( we have crappy LFS here ) at least 1 or 2 die from the shoal that i get. So one guppy died and I tested my water it was ACE. So I just thought it was just an unhealthy fish. Then one of my guppy's started to act weird and one day I saw it sucked dead to the filter . Then thats when I started realizing that something is going on that is not good. ALL my other fish are great and healthy and plump ( alot of my fish need good water quality, and there doing fine ). So today 2 out of my 3 guppy's left are just sort of being really inactive and glazing around just floating not swimming. They are just floating vertical in the water and keeping to the top of the tank just chilling. I know this is a sign of death coming up and I dont want this to happen! I always keep up on my water maintenance, doing 15 % water changed 2 times a week, including gravel vac. There is 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. My Nitrate is 20. the only other casualty I've had is my bamboo shrimp died after about 3-4 days out of an unkown cause. Just looking to see if anyone here has any idea on what is going on. Thanks 

Nick


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## joeshmoe (Aug 2, 2006)

i feel like this happens alot to livebearers. this same thing kept happing to my mollies and platys i had five platy once and theres one left. i still to this day fig what happend to my fish . it might be a over dose on condishener ? or something i dont realy know but it allways happend to my fish :roll:


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## love_my_fish (Sep 17, 2006)

I've noticed this happen to platies I've kept over the years -- don't know what it is, I always assume its tuberculosis which is supposed to be really common in fish.

Anyway, what sometimes helped -- more for mollies though, was to add some aquarium salt to the water. I believe 1 tsp per gallon was reccomended.


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## bettababy (Oct 12, 2006)

Livebearing fishes, particularly mollies, swordtails, guppies, and platys are prone to internal parasites, and specific diseases that target this group of fish. Have you noticed any changes in color of the fish before they die or when they first start acting sick? What is your water temp? What other fish are in the tank.
Also, what is your ratio of male to female guppies? If there are not enough females in the tank, males will chase females to the point where they die from exhaustion, because of their natural breeding habits. It's important to either keep all of one sex or to have 2 females for EACH male in the tank.
Does this help?
If you can provide more info about the guppies, I will do what I can to help.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

There is one internal parasite that I seem to see most commonly found on livebearers: camallanus worms. Hope they're not what you have, Nick.:blink: The most obvious sign would be appearance of fish's poo being pink.
I have never experienced this with my own livebearers though although I now avoid livebearers as I lost the interest with keeping them.
This link contains information regarding Camallanus.

Good luck, Nick.


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## Nick (Aug 2, 2006)

Well....It finally did that for a couple days and i went to do maintence and it was sucked to the filter....I saw it coming though so its not too bad. I'm not going to get any more guppy's, they always seem to have problems in my tank....Thanks for the information!


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## crazie.eddie (Sep 1, 2006)

What brand tank are you using? A local breeder told me that he bought this certain brand of tank and all his fish died in it. He assumes it was the silicone used. He filled it with vinegar, which probably nuetralized the chemical in the silicone. After that, the tank was able to sustain fish again.


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## Nick (Aug 2, 2006)

Huh thats weird...Mine is a glass 55 gallon held by silicone like most tanks...But I'm *NOT* doing that lol... I wonder what the silicone does? It doesnt effect the other fish? Who will ever know what happened though.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Nick said:


> I wonder what the silicone does? It doesnt effect the other fish? Who will ever know what happened though.


I would say this is more of brands of silicon sealant used which is not intended for aquariums. Some are for metals, woods and plastics. As far as I can see, only those designed for aquariums should be used for safety purposes of the fish.:wink2:


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