Please help, one of my male guppys is really really sick.

Last night i saw him swimming on his own away from other fish near the filter, I thought it a little weird but didnt really think much of it.

Today i came home and he was sitting on the bottom of the tank barely moving (just flapping his side fins not his tail), i netted him and put him in a hospital net/cage thing.

He could hardly move, i gave him some food and put a tiny amount of salt in with him (i heard thats a sort of all purpose health tonic? i dunno i was desperate). He is still on the bottom hardly moving, really sick.

What is it and what should i do? he doesn't have and obvious signs of illness, still good colour size and no white spot or anything. all the rest of the tank is healthy.

I dont want him to die hes just become a daddy!!

hmmm......... i could be from old age or stress. How long have u had him? Do u have a testing kit? if so what is ur readings?

Thanks for reply. Tested water all stats good, reently did a 20% water change too, had him abot 2 months and never had a problem.

Bump - please help

it could be indegestion or bloatedness. i wish i could be more helpful!

EDIT: it just occured to me that his body may be clamped.

This post has been edited by pinkdolphin_113: Jun 14 2008, 10:19 AM

I have kept guppies many years. In my experiance, this is a bad sign. Is his back arched? Does he swim away if you out your finger near him? Are his fins clamped?

His back is not arched, he trys to swim away a little if i go near him and his fins are not clamped, i think he is getting a bit better in the hospital net, i think maybe my RTBS is bullying him at night as they have the same colours?

beany bot were u the one who use to never ever do water changes at all??

or is that someone else.

im just thinking if its only recently uve done water changes more then maybe could be contributing factor?

I have always done water changes in this tank

Bump

Is he skinny? I've lost a lot of fish to parasites and that's exactly what they did in the end. I think I finally beat it, I used praziquantel.
I've rescued extremely skinny fish that were sick from secondary infection due to heavy parasite loads - very warm hospital tank with tetracycline and stuffed them full of every protein rich food I could find as often as I could get more down them.

Does seem quite skinny, always has thou, he will eat bloodworm but wont touch flakes which he normally does i wonder that it may be parasitic. hmm i think he is slowly getting better.