Guppy Disease. Not Sure Help Please

[Bri]

Hi i would really appreciate some help, I have a 120 tank freshwater with a community set up. I did a big water change a week ago 50 percent and cleaned my filter out yesterday. I normally dont do such a big water change but the tank inmates were nipping and i had had a big birth of babies. I also noticed a few fish rubbing them selves of the sand i looked this up and saw it as a sign of some infection or disease so i did a big change.

So i have two guppies on their side in the tank with really red inflamed gills breathing and swimming on their sides. they also appear to have more slim on them than normal, looked kind of yellow and oily on them. One has been this way for a day or so. they cant seem to swim down in the water and if they do they dart frantically and hit things before going back up to the surface. I just noticed that one other fish's gill look inflamed too and red just now so that makes three in total. i looked it up and saw that it could be a fluke worm in their gills .

So anybody have ideas of what this is or what i should do? thank is heavily populated with guppys (not over crowed) but they seem to be the only other type of fish to be affected?
I have used metafix natural treatment and removed the carbon filter. I have lots of other fish, frogs, shrimp in the tank so i need to be carefull with what treatments i use.

Please please provide any advice you can i am a bit freaked about that thought of any kind of parasite in my tank. i could use salt but am not sure if this is ok with the frogs.

any help very much appreciated.
many thanks,
bri

 

[Akasha72]

obviously the first question would be what are your water parameters? Red gills can be a sign of ammonia and you mentioned you cleaned your filter. How did you do this? How long has your tank been running?

I'm not an expert at fish deseases but if I can help you I will.

Akasha

 

[Bri]

I cleaned it in the tank water as i usually do, i d run the sponge under the tap for a few mins but the part of it that stores the bacteria was not washed in clean water. I dont think i could have removed the beneficial bacteria. my tanks up and running for 6 months id say give or take a month. I ran out of my test kit that i normally use. ill get more tommorrow and get them to test it in the shop. Ill get back an report tomorrow and report what the results are. every other fish is acting fine its just the guppys that are sick so i dont think its my water. but ill check tomorrow. thanks for the response sometimes the internet can come up with the scariest results that freak me out. ill report back tomorrow with results of water test results. I dont think the water stats are off but they could be because of my big water change and cleaning of the filter.

 

[Akasha72]

if you've run a sponge under the tap you will have killed the bacteria - maybe not all of it but certainly enough of it to cause a problem.

As a precaution I'd do another water change and see if the guppies go back to normal - still get that water checked though.
I'd also not feed until you know what's going on.

How does the tank smell? Is it strong?

 

[Bri]

no there is not really any smell. My filter has a part in it that has loads of barrel type things and thats where the bacteria can grow that was kept in the water from the tank. i did a small water change today. i had to feed them today as i got frogs and they needed feeding but tomorrow i will fast the tank and get water checked. i just am afraid itll spread, i am without a hospital tank at the moment as it broke so i am afraid of it spreading in the tank. the water is a little cloudy though?

 

[Joanne_]

Cloudy water ... that could be a bacterial blossom, which makes me think you might have killed too many good bacteria by accident ?

 

[OldMan47]

To me it sounds like it may be a water quality problem but I am moving your thread to tropical emergencies where you may get better help than we can give you here in the common livebearer section.

 

[Akasha72]

as Joanne said, cloudy water could be a bacterial bloom but there could be more than one thing going on.

A good rule of thumb with filters is to never wash any part of it with tap water. Whilst some of the bacteria lives in the ceramic balls you mention at lot more will be living on the sponges. If you have washed any part of the filter in tap water all the bacteria in that part will have gone. That part of the filter now has to start re-growing bacteria to support your fish. The best way to help this would be to keep ammonia and nitrite low by changing water daily until the filter catches back up. Some fish will show signs of ammonia poisoning quicker than others.

If your water is also cloudy a water change will help that too.

Good luck and I hope things are looking a bit better this morning

Akasha

 

[Bri]

thanks so much for moving the thread lost one fish but the rest including the sick one are looking bettter. water quality is fine and im using some tablets to kill any parasite. i just added frogs to the tank (cong frogs) and i think thats where the fluk came from. Day two of treatment now and the other fish is looking better. i might do a water change tonight just to be sure. ill keep ye posted and thanks again for the help. I also think there may have been a small bloom. The water is not cloudy anymore and the sick fish ate yesterday and looks on the mend.

 

[Bri]

ah i lost a frog this morning. rip little guy. im wondering if i should do a water change, i am on the third day of the meds out of five so im not sure should i wait or do a small one? any ideas on water changes during medicine cycles?

 

[Prime Ordeal]

I hope you didn't use salt. You mentioned you might earlier and that will definitely kill frogs.

Keep up with the water changes and just add in the right proportion of med that you will have removed. So if you change half the water add half the dose back in, if you change a third water then a third of the dose etc.

I haven't seen any test readings for your water, do you have a test kit? If not you really should get one.

It definitely looks like you harmed the filter bacteria when you cleaned it. Only ever clean any part of the filter in old tank water.