Guppy died

[Proterra]

One of my female guppies died after having her babies - of which we only found one. After she died her belly seemed to have blood in it. What do you think happened to her?

 

[paulthegreat]

Not sure but it sounds like it may have been stress or some other complication with the birth. Sorry to say it happens and I lost a Swordy about eight months ago under similar circumstances. She did not deliver any of the fry though so if you can keep it then at least you have that Sorry about your loss.

 

[afireinside]

hmm, that also sounds like what happened to my dalmation molly, a few months ago, cept she gave birth to about 20, and over half of them died.

 

[GuppyDude]

likely a complication dealing with giveing birth, its very common in livebearers and its sad that it happens. i lost a female as well about 2 weeks ago. she had about 5 and then stopped, i released her and she was fine for a few days but she still seemed very fat, my guess is that one of teh fry got stuck comeing out

 

[debiasir]

i had the same a few days ago. My guppy was about to give birth and i found her dead when i checked on her in the morning. Her belly had red patches to it.

i can only guess it was a brthing problem or stress caused by the birth

 

[matty22069]

Ive just signed up to this forum because i was wondering if i could get help. I have recently bought 4 females to add to my tank and within a few weeks they all became pregnant but 2 of them died giving birth and one of them only gave birth to eight whilst the remaining female guppy is still pregnant, i was wondering if its complications during birth?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Most likely, fish can die during giving birth just as much as we can as its a very stressful proceedure especially for a first time mum fish.
Creating a stress-free enviroment will help prevent these bad consequences, heres some factors you need to take into consideration;

a. Females will often get harrassed by other fish when they are trying to give birth, this is normal behavior from the other fish as they will try to eat her fry as she gives birth to them and the male fish will eagerly try to mate with her as she becomes available.
As a consequence this is very stressful for the mother fish and providing lots of planting for her to hide in and enough space will help avoid this.
If the harrassment is realy bad though it is advised you move her to a breeding net/trap or empty fry tankso she can at least give birth in peace. Also if you have an agressive fish like tiger barbs in the tank with her, move her to somwhere where she can give birth in peace as soon as she starts going into labour, these fish like tiger barbs will undoutably over harrass her as they have a reputation too.
b. Creating a stress free enviroment; if your tank is cycling/newly setup the fluctuating water quality conditions will be very stressfull for any pregnant fish, particually one that is trying to give birth, so keeping good water quality conditions via by doing lots of 20-30%water changes daily with dechlorinator is more than essential in this scenario. Keeping good water quality via water changes is a must in any scenario as if there are issues with the water quality this will make the tank conditions stressful for any fish, pregnant or not; you can find out wether your water quality is good by montering the toxins ammonia and nitrites and nitrate levels weekly via test kits bought from your local fish store.

So, you have managed to secure good water quality for your fish. After checking that your stocking levels and gender ratios between your fish are correct and need no changing, let us turn to the enviroment of the tank itself.
When a fish is trying to give birth, she will instinctively try to find somwhere in the tank where she can hide and do this in peace. Providing some densely planted areas and a couple of caves in the tank is very nesarsary for her to do this, we are not talking just one or 2 plants and a rock in the tank but somwhere that she can realy hide from the other fish and cannot be seen by them or you. When the fry are born they too will also instinctly hide in these hiding areas away from the mouths of other fish, the more hiding places the tank has the bigger the survival rate of the fry and the less stressful giving birth to them will be for the mother fish.

c. fry/birthing tanks and breeding nets/traps; if you have a decent sized cycled spare tank for the mother to go in that is not inhabited by other fish, you can avoid these processes to a certain extent(although good water quality and a certain amount of hiding places for fish is a must for any tank). A decent minimum size for a birthing tank is 5gallons and so is for a fry tank, if you have more than one pregnant female in a birthing tank this is no better than keeping them in the main tank together though.

It is good to have a breeding net or trap at hand in any situation although these themselves can be very stressfull for the pregnant fish due to the lack of space, try not to keep a platy/guppy sized fish in a breeding net for more than 4days and a molly/swordtail sized fish in it for 2days as anymore time than this will make the whole proceedure worthless and more stressful for the fish- more than one fish per tank/net/trap is also totally unaceptable.

d. food; feeding your pregnant fish lots of high protein foods like bloodworms/tubifex/daphinia/krill(freezedried, frozen by thawed out or live) will help give her some extra energy to help her cope better with the pregnancy and birth too.

Follow these directions and it will make the whole pregnancy and birthing process much less stressful for the fish and increase pregnant fish survival rates alot
.

 

[Little_Orca]

Sorry to hear of your loss. Has the fry faired well?