Sick aquarium lots of death

[kitta98]

I have had my tank for about 5 months now. It was my first tank and it took some tries to get it right with temperatures and cycling but in the end my tank is now presumably perfect. I do have a problem with quarantine in that I didn’t quarantine any of my fish. I think my tank now has some sort of disease or infection. I had 3 male guppies, a molly 2 German blue ram and 6 neon tetra. I recently added 5 female guppies to make the males more comfortable as one of my long fin guppies was being targeted for bullying. And then 3 weeks late reply he died over night. He was covered in a thick white slime that looked fungal. I unfortunately don’t have a photo. I thought this was just that he was Attacked so I didn’t think much of it. Then one of the other boys went completely missing. No body no nothing he just disappeared. Then my molly dies of the same thing as the long finned guppy. I started treating what I thought seemed like a fungal infection with primafix. Then suddenly one of the females swim bladder stops working so I put her in a breeding box so she can reach the surface easier and eat. The next day she dies covered in this white slime but not as thick as the molly and male guppy. It’s been about two weeks since then and today one of my females swim bladder stopped working and my last remaining males scales are all puffed up. It looks like droopy. I have no idea what’s going on or how to help. Does anyone know what this is?

 

[Chief Brody]

I'd start feeding them all fresh garlic mixed in with their regular food from now on. Also is your tank planted? It really should be. Definitely only keep one male guppy as a stud or none at all - they kill each other in smaller tanks. I put garlic through a garlic press and mix it with frozen bloodworms and skinned peas and chopped parsley. Then re-freeze it into little cubes. Eggcrate works great for this. This is what I always feed my fish. They're all healthy and all together

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[Chief Brody]

.... also higher temps can help bacteria flourish. Not sure what you're keeping those rams at but they can safely be kept at 78 I had a pair under 80 degrees for 6months and they were doing well. If you're above 80 degrees the water really has to be pristine. This is why discus can be a challenge. Hot-rod your filtration in some way or get a bigger tank and make your old tank a sump/refugium to breed those guppies in. Here's my 30gallon long I converted into a sump for my guppies. As the babies are born they pass through the final baffle and are separated from the parents so they don't get eaten. Just a thought, cheers

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[NickAu]

He was covered in a thick white slime that looked fungal.

Do you mean something like this?

Your tank is poorly stocked it has fish that need soft water mixed in with fish that need hard water.

 

[kitta98]

I'd start feeding them all fresh garlic mixed in with their regular food from now on. Also is your tank planted? It really should be. Definitely only keep one male guppy as a stud or none at all - they kill each other in smaller tanks. I put garlic through a garlic press and mix it with frozen bloodworms and skinned peas and chopped parsley. Then re-freeze it into little cubes. Eggcrate works great for this. This is what I always feed my fish. They're all healthy and all together

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I'd start feeding them all fresh garlic mixed in with their regular food from now on. Also is your tank planted? It really should be. Definitely only keep one male guppy as a stud or none at all - they kill each other in smaller tanks. I put garlic through a garlic press and mix it with frozen bloodworms and skinned peas and chopped parsley. Then re-freeze it into little cubes. Eggcrate works great for this. This is what I always feed my fish. They're all healthy and all together

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Yeah my tank is planted and I’ll try it out

 

[kitta98]

.... also higher temps can help bacteria flourish. Not sure what you're keeping those rams at but they can safely be kept at 78 I had a pair under 80 degrees for 6months and they were doing well. If you're above 80 degrees the water really has to be pristine. This is why discus can be a challenge. Hot-rod your filtration in some way or get a bigger tank and make your old tank a sump/refugium to breed those guppies in. Here's my 30gallon long I converted into a sump for my guppies. As the babies are born they pass through the final baffle and are separated from the parents so they don't get eaten. Just a thought, cheers

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Because it is so hot in my area i don’t have a heater in any of my tanks and they all sit at 76 lowest and about 82 on a really hot day. The rams are doing fine they are the healthiest fish in the tank the only problems are with the livebearers.

 

[kitta98]

Do you mean something like this?

Your tank is poorly stocked it has fish that need soft water mixed in with fish that need hard water.

I have soft water in my area but I’ve had two guppies since day one and one is still alive. (The other being the long finned one) I thought hardness might have been the problem as only the mollies and guppies are affected. It does look similar to that but a lot worse all over the body and a lot thicker. If hardness really is the problem how would I fix that. And if I did fix it for the livebearers would I be putting the ram and neon tetras at risk?

 

[kitta98]

.... also higher temps can help bacteria flourish. Not sure what you're keeping those rams at but they can safely be kept at 78 I had a pair under 80 degrees for 6months and they were doing well. If you're above 80 degrees the water really has to be pristine. This is why discus can be a challenge. Hot-rod your filtration in some way or get a bigger tank and make your old tank a sump/refugium to breed those guppies in. Here's my 30gallon long I converted into a sump for my guppies. As the babies are born they pass through the final baffle and are separated from the parents so they don't get eaten. Just a thought, cheers

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Also my tank was very under stocked when all my fish were alive so it’s a lot more under stocked now. I have 80L all up I’m Australian so I don’t know that I’m gallons sorry.

 

[kitta98]

I'd start feeding them all fresh garlic mixed in with their regular food from now on. Also is your tank planted? It really should be. Definitely only keep one male guppy as a stud or none at all - they kill each other in smaller tanks. I put garlic through a garlic press and mix it with frozen bloodworms and skinned peas and chopped parsley. Then re-freeze it into little cubes. Eggcrate works great for this. This is what I always feed my fish. They're all healthy and all together

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I also only have one male guppy left and he’s showing signs of dropsy so I’m not sure I’ll even have him soon...

 

[Chief Brody]

Were the guppies breeding at all? I've kept guppies rams and tetras together in 5ph, very tannic with no problems. The guppies didn't breed til I moved them to a 7.6ph tank with high flow though. Guppies can tolerate almost anything and mollies can even go brackish so it depends on which fish in the tank you want to favor more to encourage spawning or not. You can use any biogenic sand to do this. It can be field collected and baked for your aquarium. I used shell debris that washed up on the sand and put it in a wet/dry. Or just hang a handful in an old pair of pantyhose in your filter somehow.

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[Chief Brody]

This was the tank. I had embers and guppies and gbrs and one male gold ram with some other dwarf cichlids and panda cories all together. The red blur at the top is a guppy

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[Chief Brody]

I even grew out 4 yoyo's in that setup

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[Chief Brody]

So that was a 200litre tank but only filled about 65% so maybe 120litres of actual water. However it does spread that water out over a larger footprint so I could keep that many fish together in there. Never had any diseases though and I never quarantined anything just fed them constant garlic and dried seaweed and live daphnia/bloodworms. I never had to directly feed the cories anything. They just sifted all day fat and happy. I even had a puffer in there. He's still alive now in the river-tank. I cycled that tank for months though growing plants and then slowly added shrimp and snails and small fish slowly climbing up the food chain. And all the fish came from distributors or reputable sources. Mostly local breeders. I also added most of the fish at the same time so they all grew up together. The filter was also more than twice what was necessary. Small tanks are difficult to maintain compared to 200+ litres. There's just more water there to dilute any bad chemicals. Big tanks are alot easier just a pain to move/set-up

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[kitta98]

Were the guppies breeding at all? I've kept guppies rams and tetras together in 5ph, very tannic with no problems. The guppies didn't breed til I moved them to a 7.6ph tank with high flow though. Guppies can tolerate almost anything and mollies can even go brackish so it depends on which fish in the tank you want to favor more to encourage spawning or not. You can use any biogenic sand to do this. It can be field collected and baked for your aquarium. I used shell debris that washed up on the sand and put it in a wet/dry. Or just hang a handful in an old pair of pantyhose in your filter somehow.

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Yeah the guppies were breeding I have two females pregnant and one was pregnant before but I made the mistake of moving her into a tank alone and then her back into her original tank too quickly she stressed and died. That was just my poor choices that caused her death tho. I didn’t want to keep the babies so I just fed them to the blue ram. I’ll try this garlic mix of yours but usually I just use flake food bloodworms and sometimes brine shrimp to mix it up. That’s why I believe it’s some sort of infection because of how hardy guppies are. Even if they are in soft water I feel as though it might have killed them a while ago if that was the problem. I just can’t seem to pinpoint what infection or disease this could be. I’m relatively new to fish only about 6 months or so and I have three fish tanks. My main community tanks and my two other tanks hold betta which I’m preparing for breeding when I get a new tank for them. Ive never had problems with my community tank before this apart from the bullying of one of my gourami I had who unfortunately. I didn’t do enough research there. But apart from that all my other fish have been healthy.

 

[Chief Brody]

Look into tannins as well. I think Australia has almond leaves or something close. You could probably collect from your area. I use oak here in the States. New world fish come from tanic slow rivers. The rio negro looks like coca-cola. I like the natural look of tannins myself. It's definitely healthier

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