Dead Guppy

[finalfantay85]

One of my snakeskin guppies has just died very suddenly. He was swimming around happy and normal one minute, i left the room for 5 minutes and when I came back he was lying dead on the bottom of the tank. There's no sign of injury or disease on him, all the water levels are normal. Chlorine is 0, nitrates and nitrites are roughly 0, the pH is around 7, the GH is about 8 and the KH is between 6 and 10.
He's my first loss and i know i'm gonna lose some fish but it's the speed of him dying i'm concerned about.
The guppies were only added to my 57L tank on Saturday.
Any ideas what might have caused this and is it anything i should worry about?

 

[WILDER]

How many fish and which type.
Do you have ammonia reading.
What your tap nitrate reading. Do you have live plants in the tank.
How long did you climatise the new fish for.
What was the ph of the lfs to your tank ph.
How long has the tank been set up.

 

[finalfantay85]

How many fish and which type.
Do you have ammonia reading.
What your tap nitrate reading. Do you have live plants in the tank.
How long did you climatise the new fish for.
What was the ph of the lfs to your tank ph.
How long has the tank been set up.

The tank has been running 6 weeks
i have 3 live plants,
the fish were left to acclimitise for roughly an hour before adding to the tank.
I have no idea about the lfs pH or my ammonia levels sorry i only have a basic strip testing kit. I'll go to my supplier later with a water sample and ask them to check it and also to look at the dead fish to see if they can spot anything.
The Nitrate level of my tap water is 0.
I have 5 guppies now, 2 snakeskin and a black variety with a red and yellow tail, 6 flame tetra, 8 copper harlequins and 3 otto, none over 2cm

 

[WILDER]

Did you add tank water to the bag.

I would invest in some liquid test kits as there more accurate, Test strip cards are not very accurate.
Need the ammonia reading.

It could be a number of things.
The fish wasn't climatised right.
The fish was already ill.
Stress.
Old age.
Didn't handle the journey and new enviroment.

Did he look bloated or thin.
Was he spending alot of time on the substrate.
What did it look like when he went to the toilet.
Were his fins clamped to his body.

 

[finalfantay85]

Did you add tank water to the bag.

I would invest in some liquid test kits as there more accurate, Test strip cards are not very accurate.
Need the ammonia reading.

It could be a number of things.
The fish wasn't climatised right.
The fish was already ill.
Stress.
Old age.
Didn't handle the journey and new enviroment.

Did he look bloated or thin.
Was he spending alot of time on the substrate.
What did it look like when he went to the toilet.
Were his fins clamped to his body.

I did add tank water to the bag yes. Added twice to the bag as per LFS instructions.
I intend to buy a better testing kit later on today. Like i say he was fine one minute and a few minutes later he was dead. He wasn't bloated or thin, he was swimming around normally with the rest of the fish, they like to swim over and around my heater. His fins weren't clamped to his body and i didn't actually see his faeces so i can't help there.
I noticed he'd died when i went to add some Melafix to the tank cos one of my tetra has a minor nip out of his tail fin. I've added the Melafix now so if it is bacterial or fungal this should help shouldn't it? Is it worth dosing with some filter start now in case there has been an ammonia spike? I will know for sure later about that but obviously i don't want any of the other fish to die in the meantime

 

[WILDER]

Melafix is fine on cuts and wounds. But not all fish tolerate it towell. it sometimes better just to try half dose to see how they handle it first.

Never used filter start so couldn't really say how good it is, or if it even works.

Until we know full water stats it hard to say what went wrong. Water quality is the first thing to rule out.
Plus the fish wasn't showing any symtoms to go on.

 

[finalfantay85]

Yeah i know that's what is confusing me. It definitely doesn't look like there is any disease at all but i might have missed something.
I'll be at the lfs in a little over an hour so will know then about my water quality.
Thanks for trying to shed some light on this anyway, i was just worrying it was something that was gonna wipe them all out in a hurry

 

[WILDER]

Ok.
Once we see water results we can go from there.

 

[finalfantay85]

Ok i think i've found the problem. I bought a testing kit and my ammonia levels were 4ppm or maybe slightly above on the colour chart but not up tp 8ppm.
I've done a partial water change, added some more denitrifying bacteria to try and help the filter out.
I am gonna have to get something to remove the ammonia first thing tomorrow.
Is there anything else i can do tonight to help the situation?

 

[rebrn]

Ok i think i've found the problem. I bought a testing kit and my ammonia levels were 4ppm or maybe slightly above on the colour chart but not up tp 8ppm.
I've done a partial water change, added some more denitrifying bacteria to try and help the filter out.
I am gonna have to get something to remove the ammonia first thing tomorrow.
Is there anything else i can do tonight to help the situation?

How large was your water change? You may have to do another one before tomorrow ... but I will let Wilder comment on that (much more experience then me). Other then the water changes I don't think there is much more you can do tonight. But the more experienced people may be able to offer you more advise on that.

Good Luck

 

[finalfantay85]

It was somewhere in the region of 35 to 40% changed and also about 2G was taken out the day before as i had to rehome a fish for being aggressive to the guppies. It's come down to 2-3ppm now but i have been advised to do a 50% change every day for a few days to get the levels right down

 

[rebrn]

It was somewhere in the region of 35 to 40% changed and also about 2G was taken out the day before as i had to rehome a fish for being aggressive to the guppies. It's come down to 2-3ppm now but i have been advised to do a 50% change every day for a few days to get the levels right down

That sounds about right, I am new myself, but that sounds like the advise the experts here would give. I would stick with that and just make sure you monitor very closely.

 

[Schmill]

Sorry that is not 'about right' at all!

Ammonia NEEDS to be 0.

If you tested the water and did not get a zero reading then do a 50% water change.
Leave it an hour.
Test again, if you are still getting high ammonia levels then do another 50% water change.

Do not leave it days, you need to get that ammonia out of there, and the best way to do so is water changes.
I would advise AGAINST buying anything to try and remove the ammonia for you, as that will just disrupt the bacteria cycle that your filter is currently trying it's hardest to establish.


Are these your first fish into the tank?
When you say the tank has been running for 6 weeks, what did you do to it over that time?
It sounds like either you hadn't correctly cycled your filter, and / or have now increased your stocking too quickly, but we'll get to that later.

If you can do those water changes to get the levels down, and answer the above questions we will be heading in the right direction.

Ammonia burns the fish, it burns their fins, their bodies, and perhaps most importantly their gills, which is the equivalent of your lungs. This is why the fish can die with no outward signs, if it's gills were too damaged it may well have just suffocated.

 

[finalfantay85]

I am doing hourly water changes now to get the levels down as quickly as i can and am gonna get a gravel vac later to make sure there's nothing adding to it from the substrate.
I think the other poster was saying that doing about a 40% water change was about right not the ammonia levels.
I am not gonna add anything to the water to lower the ammonia just keep up the water changes

 

[ZoddyZod]

Unfortunately you are in a fish-in cycle. Have a read of the pinned topics regarding cycling in the beginners section. This will give youn a clear uderstanding of what is happening in your tank and how best to manage it.

Sadly, guppies can be very sensitive due to inbreeding, but not many fish will tolerate suh high levels of ammonia anyway.

Get the ammonia as close to zero as you can (compare a sample to your tap water if you are having trouble asessing the reading from the drip test kit) an then follow the advice in the section I mentioned above.

I did a fish-in cycle, it can be a long and time consuming process, but you will need to keep up with the water changes to try to avoid any more deaths.