Fin rot, I think not?

[Phishphace]

I'm not sure what's going on with my guppy tank. The parameters are perfect: no nitrites, nitrates are extremely low, no ammonia, the pH is like 7.5ish, I keep the temperature at 78. I do a water change once a week, it's a 10 gallon I take out 3 gallons and replace it. I use API stress coat plus and API stress zyme plus with every water change. I feed the fish once a day, I'm very careful not to feed too much. I fast them every Sunday, when I do their water change.

When I got the guppies I had noticed that one of them had what I thought was ick. I treated the ick with Microbe-Lift Herbtana and Artemiss. The white spots went away. I have treated these issues in the past with these items and never had a recurring issue. That fish unfortunately died, but it wasn't from the ick. After having it for about a week it's back fin started to get rough, jagged, sharp edges. Whatever this is does not create a white film at the edge of the fins like a typical fin rot does. The fish doesn't start to rub on things like it's itchy. The fish is perfectly fine, starts to get a tattered tail and then it dies. I have had two other guppies now die from the same exact thing. About a week apart from each other. It only took about 2 days from the time I saw the tattered tail until it died.

Now it's been two weeks with no issues. Until today.' I'mfreaked out because I have another guppy with a tattered tail, I don't know what to do and I can't find anything online about what causes tattered tail, other than fin rot.

Can anyone help me?!!? I don't want to lose another little guy. I also don't want to slowly lose the entire community because I don't know what's going on.

I use the microbe lift product because it's natural, I do have some shrimp in there and an auto, which I know are sensitive to chemicals and I don't want to kill any of them. I don't have enough space to have an isolation tank, so I can't remove the fish and put it into another tank. Since this keeps recurring with a giant lapse between issues, I'm pretty sure whatever they're dealing with is in the water column.

 

[JuiceBox52]

Do any of them seem to nip at the others?

 

[Colin_T]

If you can post some more pictures it might help. Use the camera flash and check them on your computer before posting.

The fish in the top picture look like they have excess mucous, which is normally caused by something in the water irritating them.

The fish in the bottom picture could have a bacterial infection in the tail or someone is biting it.

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What is the GH of the water?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Guppies need a GH around 200ppm.

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You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

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 4 heaped tablespoons 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, 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 will affect some plants. The lower dose rate will not affect plants.

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.

 

[Phishphace]

Do any of them seem to nip at the others?

No, no fin nippers that I have observed. I look at the tank quite a bit,Which is why I noticed that the night before he had just fine tail fins and now they're all messed up. '

 

[Phishphace]

If you can post some more pictures it might help. Use the camera flash and check them on your computer before posting.

The fish in the top picture look like they have excess mucous, which is normally caused by something in the water irritating them.

The fish in the bottom picture could have a bacterial infection in the tail or someone is biting it.

------------------------
What is the GH of the water?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Guppies need a GH around 200ppm.

------------------------
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

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 4 heaped tablespoons 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, 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 will affect some plants. The lower dose rate will not affect plants.

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.

I appreciate your response. They are the same fish in both images, only one at a time seems to be affected. Today it looks the same, whereas the last two I lost had extremely increased damage on the next day. Last time I checked the GH, the last time one of the fish died, it was at around 150. I brought it to the local Petco and that's what they told me.

I posted last time this happened, and somebody else mentioned adding salt... I thought that was bad to add to tanks with shrimp. When you say, "sea salt," can I literally just add the same sea salt I use to eat? I get all natural sea salt granules from the local organic store.

I don't have only guppies, I have an oto catfish as well as just under a dozen shrimp. There are plenty of MTS, but I don't really care about them as much, other than raising the ammonia levels, lol!