Guppy With A Shredded Tail

[Tiswas]

Hi, slightly concerned about one of my lovely male guppies.

Tank size: 60L
pH:7.5
nitrite:0
nitrate:0
kH:120ppm
gH:180ppm (trying to get this down)
tank temp:25-26

OK, on saturday I added three new male guppies to my tank which has been up and running for about 2 months. It has 4 live plants and some bogwood in it. Have had two kuhli loaches in for about 2 weeks before I added the guppies. On tuesday I did a 10% water change (treated water with aqua safe, made sure the temp was ok before adding it to the tank, etc.) Yesterday morning I woke up to find one of my guppies dead face down in a plant. He had a shredded tail but other than that looked fine (no marks or blemishes on his body) and hadn't been displaying any signs of illness the day before. Now I've noticed that one of my remaining guppies has a massive split in his tail and I'm worried it may lead to the same thing as what killed the first one. He's not displaying any signs of illness and is still pestering the other one and swimming about quite happily. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened in the tank other than the discovery of a baby snail that must've hitched a ride in on one of the plants originally.

I'd really like to do everything I can to make sure that this little guy doesn't suffer the same fate as his tank mate. I'm hoping he may have just caught it on something and ripped it rather than having a problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Newgee]

Hi Tiswas

Sorry to hear about your guppy its not nice when they pass away unknowingly.

Did you climatise the fish before adding to your tank?

is the split down to the body of the fish? and is there any marks near the tale like redish pink colour?

Fish can live with their fins split without a problem, the problem starts if the fin or the body near to where the fin is gets split and then infection starts.

Some frozen bloodworm/brine shrimp/daphnia high in protein can help to rebuild damaged fins.

Split fin can be treated with melafix and is harmless to fish and the filter as it is a natural product.

Wilder will be on shortly and is alot more knowledgeable especially with meds.

Regards
Scott

 

[Tiswas]

Thanks for the reply. No the split doesn't go all the way down to the body, goes about three quarters of the way down the tail. He doesn't appear to have any marks around the base on the body so hopefully he's ok. I'll try and get some live food later when I go to the pet shop.

 

[Newgee]

Hi Tiswas

He should be ok then, but he still could get infection in the split, you could try the melafix as it won't hurt anything, im actually treating a large koi at the moment with melafix and i must say its doing a good job.

Make sure to get frozen food the live stuff can have parasites.

Thats a valuable lession i learned from wilder not to long ago.

Also your baby snail might have friends with it, and will soon be ALOT of snails, i mean like hundreds if your not to bothered then cool, but if you are i would get rid and look for small jelly sacks which are their eggs.

Before getting melafix see what wilder has to say, as there is another med which may be better, she will be on soon.

Regards
Scott

 

[WILDER]

Hi Tiswas

He should be ok then, but he still could get infection in the split, you could try the melafix as it won't hurt anything, im actually treating a large koi at the moment with melafix and i must say its doing a good job.

Make sure to get frozen food the live stuff can have parasites.

Thats a valuable lession i learned from wilder not to long ago.

Also your baby snail might have friends with it, and will soon be ALOT of snails, i mean like hundreds if your not to bothered then cool, but if you are i would get rid and look for small jelly sacks which are their eggs.

Before getting melafix see what wilder has to say, as there is another med which may be better, she will be on soon.

Regards
Scott

had no luck with guppys myself so stop buying them.
Split fins can heal on there own in good water quality if there no signs of infection.

Keep a look out for when your fish go to the toilet.
Do any of the guppys look skinny or bloated.

 

[Tiswas]

No they all look fine. Have seen them both eat and go to the toilet. I'll keep a closer eye on them for a few days and see what happens. Will try to buy some FROZEN food for them later and hope for some improvement. If not I'll try Melafix and keep an eye to make sure it doesn't get infected.

Thanks for your help guys it is very much appreciated.

 

[finalfantay85]

I've bought 3 lots of guppies myself and had at least one out of each batch die on me for no reason. In fact the healthiest on of the lot is one who had a large chunk taken out of his tail by an angry tankmate. The missing section went right down to the body but is growing back in nicely without any help from melafix or anything else. Just keep an eye out for any signs of bacterial or fungal infection and he should be fine.