Guppy Water Chemistry And Behaviour

[madi]

The water in my 30L Guppy tank is currently:
gH: 15 drops (was aiming for 12. I tested the water in the buckets as I filled the tank and they where all 12. But the tank ended up at 15. Not sure how.)
pH: 6.8 (raising to 7 with kH powder)
kH: 4 drops (I've been told to raise this to 6)

Ammonia: 0 (got to 0.15 last Wednesday due to cycling.)
Nitrite: 0 (never seen it rise)
Nitrate: 9 (has been raising slowly, but steadily through the week)

Temp: 25deg C

The tank's just over a week old, and I'm using a product called "Cycle" to cycle the tank. It doesn't have any amonia lock in it. The nitrate is steadily rising, and if ammonia shows up on the test, a retest 4 hours later shows that it's gone.

Last Sunday I put the first two fish in the tank. All was well until I went away for the weekend, and left my Mum in charge.
When I got home the pH was 7.8 (I had been testing everyday up until Friday, and it was 7 before I left), and one of my guppies had a very large, bloodied gash in his tail.
I didn't want to mess with the pH until I'd talked to my LFS, and I couldn't get there until today.

Up until today the guppy seemed to be recovering well, but then he up and died this morning. On the LFS's advice, I did a 25% water change to lower the pH, which lowered the pH to 6.8.
I also noticed this morning that my remaining guppy (a beautiful boy who looks like his tail is on fire) has black marks on the end of his tail. They look like burn marks. Could this be from the pH?

Is the water in my tank ok? I don't want to loose more fish cos of bad water.

Also, is there a way to help prevent tail biting in guppies? I've had more luck with even numbers in groups larger than 4... Is there any reason for this?

...And my guppies have always ganged up on the blue fish. EVERY blue guppy I adopt gets his tail eaten, and then dies. Why do my blue guppy's always come to grief?

 

[omega59]

Nitrate: 0
temp 75-80F / 26C
ph 7.5-7.6

your tank is not cycled at all, 1 week will not do it, and "cycle" products are a waste of money really. here is a link you can read about cycling and those products.

As a general rule, don't waste your time or money on "bacteria starter" products such as Cycle or Prime. The consensus is that they serve no useful purpose. The fact that they have been shipped on un-refrigerated trucks and stored in hot warehouses leads most to believe that there couldn't possibly be any live bacteria left in the bottles.

http/www.fishforums.net/content/forum/11...shless-Cycling/

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forums Madi.
I hate to say this but your second guppy may not make it. If it doesn't, do not add any fish to the tank. Instead do a fishless cycle as you will find posted at the top of the newbie forum. If you manage to save your present guppy, you need to truly cycle the tank in a fashion similar to the fish-in cycle post in my signature which will take you to another thread about doing a cycle with fish in the tank. In either case, the Cycle product is not considered by most people to give any benefit at all. It is considered to be a waste of money. A real cycle is about building the bacterial colony in your filter that will process ammonia to nitrites and in turn nitrites to nitrates. To build that colony requires that some ammonia be present but it need not be enough to harm your fish. That is the basic priciple explained in practical terms in the fish-in cycle posts. An alternative is to use an artificial ammonia source to establish the cycle, that is the subject of the fishless cycle sticky. The only known useful (sometimes) products are Bactinettes or Nitrospira depending on which is available where you live. These are iffy products but better than the others. Another very good and quite reliable cycling source is to borrow filter media from an established tank. There is a link in my signature to donors who have volunteered to trade some established media for unused media. It can be a fish life saver if you find yourself in a fish-in cycle because you believed the bullsquat your LFS told you.
If you have a few plants in your tank and they are growing well, it may help hold the ammonia and nitrite levels down but is not a substitute for a cycled filter.
It is fairly well accepted that the test strips that your LFS will sell as a cheap way for you to monitor your tank chemistry are almost useless and the real answer is a liquid reagent based test kit to get real answers. In your first cycle, as you are, there is no way you can afford to rely on your LFS to do your water tests. If you are changing water 3 times a day to keep up water quality, you can't afford to keep running to the LFS for testing and they will probably get tired of seeing you if you do.