Female Guppy

April FOTM Photo Contest Starts Now!
FishForums.net Fish of the Month
🏆 Click to enter! 🏆

Little-Nipper

New Member
Joined
May 1, 2022
Messages
40
Reaction score
28
Location
Cornwall
Hi all,
I have just joined because I am after some advice on 1 of my female guppies. I have been suffering different forums and the Web for advice but I can't find anything helpful 😕
Ok so down to business, I have a 100L planted aquarium with 3 male Endlers and 6 female Guppies. The aquarium is about 10 weeks old and settling down nicely (ghost feeding, adding stability daily for 1 month before adding fish).
Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 30 ppm
PH about 7.2
So the problem is that 1of my girls is always at the top of the tank in the frogbit roots on her own, she has been there for 2 days now and not eating☹️ the other fish are fine and go up too see her now and again but she doesn't even flinch. She has lost most of the blue and red from her tail.
20220501_201840.jpg

I'd be grateful if anyone could help 🙏
Thank you xx
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Are you talking about the albino female in the middle of the picture?
Need a better picture of her without the plant roots in the way.

------------------
If fish get sick or act unwell, do the following.
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until the problem is identified. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt, this works well for livebearers like guppies.

------------------
SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Are you talking about the albino female in the middle of the picture?
Need a better picture of her without the plant roots in the way.

------------------
If fish get sick or act unwell, do the following.
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until the problem is identified. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt, this works well for livebearers like guppies.

------------------
SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.
Hi Colin, thanks for getting back to me😊
Yes it's the red tail albino I have 2 of them I'll put a picture up of both of them so you can see what she did look like apart from she had blue in her tail aswell.
I've done a 80% water change and I clean the glass every other evening, the filter (fluval 307) was done 4 days ago, I don't like to clean it too much for obvious reasons. All her other tank mates are fine with no loss of colour.
Here's a better picture of her
20220502_101839.jpg


And here's a picture of her friend with almost the same colouration, like I said she has more blue in her tail
20220502_101846.jpg

Please let me know your thoughts
Thanks
Glen
 
I can't really tell anything due to the light and her colour but her fins are out and she doesn't appear to have any external diseases.

Is she eating normally?
What does her poop look like?
 
She did move about a bit this morning because I temporarily took out some of the floating plants that she's hiding in. She had a little bit to eat aswell but only as it passed by her nose but she's not eaten anything for 2 days so I'm taking that as a positive 😊. She is looking skinnier than she was but I've not seen her poo since she's not been feeling well if I see her pooing I'll try 2 get a picture.
 
If she does stringy white poop then she probably has an internal protozoan infection. The following link has information about stringy white poop in fish.
 
Internal Protozoan Infection  or
Intestinal worms
If she does stringy white poop then she probably has an internal protozoan infection. The following link has information about stringy white poop in fish.

Hi Colin T thanks for your help
I think I've narrowed it down to either internal Protozoan Infection or intestinal worms
Since this problem started I have now lost both albino female guppies and 1 male Endlers 😒
I have ordered some wormer plus from the Internet so I am hoping that works as I have seen a few white poops but I've not seen who is doing it 🤔
I will treat the whole tank as it's been going on for about 3 weeks now so chances are they have all got it😒
 
Internal Protozoan Infection  or
Intestinal worms


Hi Colin T thanks for your help
I think I've narrowed it down to either internal Protozoan Infection or intestinal worms
Since this problem started I have now lost both albino female guppies and 1 male Endlers 😒
I have ordered some wormer plus from the Internet so I am hoping that works as I have seen a few white poops but I've not seen who is doing it 🤔
I will treat the whole tank as it's been going on for about 3 weeks now so chances are they have all got it😒
 
Internal Protozoan Infection  or
Intestinal worms


Hi Colin T thanks for your help
I think I've narrowed it down to either internal Protozoan Infection or intestinal worms
Since this problem started I have now lost both albino female guppies and 1 male Endlers 😒
I have ordered some wormer plus from the Internet so I am hoping that works as I have seen a few white poops but I've not seen who is doing it 🤔
I will treat the whole tank as it's been going on for about 3 weeks now so chances are they have all got it😒
I'm so sorry to hear that you lost your fish, wishing you good luck
 

Most reactions

trending

Members online

Back
Top