I Have Just About Had It With Guppies

[nehpets81]

This is pretty much my last resort when it comes to my Guppies. Out of the six I bought about 6 months ago, only 2 are left and one of those are sick. It only seems to be the Guppies that are affected so I will try here to see if a Guppy expert can help me. This is what happened to them. They have all been flicking intermittantly throughout their lives

Female 1: This guppy was ill for a long time. First it sat on the substrate a lot, not moving much. It seemed unable to eat - it wanted to by kept spitting out its food and it became very thin, wasting away. Some weeks later the Guppy was standing on its head for a day before righting itself. Two days later it was swimming in a corkscrew motion. Later its body was twisted in a kind of paralysed boomerang shape (when looking from above) and it stopped being able to move. It stayed in this wretched state ( I should have euthanised it) for a week before dying.

Female 2: This Guppy became sick and died in a few days, it was at the same time as guppy 1 and she died at the same time. The first sign was a flaky white substance on her back which became larger. She became paralysed like the first guppy, bent out of shape and died very shortly afterwards. She was dosed with Myxazin before death.

Male 1: Fast forward two months and the male became a bit listless. His spine became bent. Not smoothly like the females, but in a crooked shape - bent one way then the other. He had trouble eating and his colours became pale. Towards the end his tail became rather ragged. I went away over xmas for a week and he had disappeared by the time I came home, presumed eaten.

Female 3: Same colouration as female 1. She became listless, spending a lot of time resting on the substrate. Her fins were clamped and her poop was white and sringy. She had a gentle curve to her spine (like a gentle hump). Her apetite was fine. I gave her a salt bath and afterwards for a day or so she was much better - swimming around and her fins were no longer clamped to her sides. The next day she was dead

Female 4: Same colouration as female 2. Today I noticed she had a small white fluffy spot on her head. She was resting on the substrate. She has been isolated and given a salt bath as a precaution but obviously I suspect she will be dead soon.

Male 2: Healthy! He flicks on the substrate occasionally but otherwise healthy.

I also have 5 x Cardinal Tetras and 5 x Sterbai Cory in the main tank. My water is hard and neutral-alkaline (ph about 7.6). I test occasionally and have never seen any ammonia or nitrite after the end of my fishless cycle but my Nitrate is difficult to keep under control due to the 40ppm levels in the tapwater.

Every time I start thinking my troubles are over another Guppy gets sick. I now have a stock of growing fry to replace the adults (some of them seem to grow up deformed) but all females of childbearing age are either dead or dying. This is really getting me down and completely affecting my enjoyment of fishkeeping. I have pretty much decided to give on keeping Guppies but I really want to know what I am dealing with. Have any experienced Guppy keepers encountered anything like this? I have scoured the internet and posted on various forums but this is beating me. My best guess at the moment is that I am dealing with some sort of Columnaris bacteria, but this doesn't really explain all the symptoms, particularly the death of Male 2.

Any questions, let me know. At this point I would do (almost) anything to beat this.

 

[Akasha72]

I think a lot of the problems with guppies now comes down to the breeding. My Dad kept guppies when I was a kid and you could chuck about anything at them and they survived but these days it seems to me that the slightest thing and they keel over. They seem so weak and I can only conclude that they've been so mass bred over the last 30 years that we've ended up with a really sickly species now.

I set out with 4 males and 4 females - less than a year ago and now I have 2 males and 3 females. One of the males seems to be swimming as if his tail is too heavy and the other is just a bully. The females are real nasty pieces of work and I regret getting them everyday. They bully every other fish in the tank.

I know none of this really solves any of your problems but I wanted you to know your not alone in having trouble with guppies. I won't be getting anymore once the remaining ones have died.

I really hope you get some answers

 

[AshP1986]

The last fish sounds like it has a fungal growth. A simple salt bath will help but only for as long as they are in the bath. It sounds like your whole tank needs a treatment. But don't put anything in the water till we know what tank mates you have as salt can harm other aquatic animals... for example, dwarf frogs can NOT tolerate any amount of salt, as I have just recently discovered the hard way, (R.I.P Mr. Froggy)

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[AshP1986]

I think a lot of the problems with guppies now comes down to the breeding. My Dad kept guppies when I was a kid and you could chuck about anything at them and they survived but these days it seems to me that the slightest thing and they keel over. They seem so weak and I can only conclude that they've been so mass bred over the last 30 years that we've ended up with a really sickly species now.

I set out with 4 males and 4 females - less than a year ago and now I have 2 males and 3 females. One of the males seems to be swimming as if his tail is too heavy and the other is just a bully. The females are real nasty pieces of work and I regret getting them everyday. They bully every other fish in the tank.

I know none of this really solves any of your problems but I wanted you to know your not alone in having trouble with guppies. I won't be getting anymore once the remaining ones have died.

I really hope you get some answers

I love my guppies! Males NEED at least 3 females per male... Or you can keep ONLY males or ONLY females and not have as many bullying issues. The females may be sick of the males constantly trying to mate with them and the males may be fighting because there are so few females. However, having a droopy tail can be a sign of poor water quality or dropsy. As I know nothing about your tank I can't say exactly what is going on with yours. I do know though that guppies tend to be a hardy fish. I have a group of 5 females and 2 males purchased from 2 different pet stores to help get different breeding lines. I have 5 3 month old fry in the tank as well that are female and will soon help the females be less bothered.

 

[Akasha72]

I lost a male platy to dropsy at xmas so I know it's not dropsy. As for my water - it's spot on for ammonia and nitrite. To be honest, as I said in my post, I don't want any more. I only planned to have the four males but they then started stressing my platies so I was forced to get the females to keep then occupied.

 

[nehpets81]

Akasha - Thanks for that, it may not help my exact problem but it is really good to know that I am not the only one having issues. As my water is hard and alkaline, I thought it would be ideal for Guppies (not very good for my kettle or the Cardinals tho...). Do you find you Platies easier? I like some of the colours so might get them instead of the Guppies

Ash - Thanks for the reply, as I mentioned in the OP I have Sterbai cories and Cardinal Tetras - not sure the Cories would mix well with salt? I have already posted in the emergency section with that template and there was no real conclusion so I thought posting in the livebearer area would be more appropriate as it only seems to be the Gupps that get sick. Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of things about them - I like the different colours and the excitement as to what the fry will look like, I like their inquisitive nature and the fact the kind of peck my hand when I put it in. BUT they are causing me far more stress and upset than joy.

 

[Akasha72]

Hi nehpets81,
Yes I find platies easier. I've lost my male to dropsy but apart from a touch of whitespot after a tank move I've had no other trouble. I've just replaced my male and he's got himself attached to one main female and he follows her everywhere. He doesn't haress her like the male guppies do with their girls it's more of a gentle swim along together happily thing. I've got 14 fry from this particular female that she had with the old male just before he got ill. I can't wait to find out what they will be like. Their only about 3 months old so don't know which are girls or boys yet or what their colouring will be like. They're just a generic orange at the moment

As for adding salt to your tank, please don't you will kill your cories

 

[AshP1986]

Yea salt is a no go for the cories... but you can set up a "hospital" tank to keep the ill guppies in so as to not harm any other fish. Plus it keeps the illness out of your main tank

 

[*pete*]

Know how you feel, had similar experience's myself, after scanning through all the Guppy postings I've decided to give them a miss until I can find some wild strain or wild/cross stock.
Seen some nice wild type's on here but they are all oversea members.

 

[Ny82]

I think everybody knows the issues i've had with guppies I saw on the other thread about how hardy fish are-to keep them at a lower temp. Maybe give that a go in the future but for the time being, save myself a lot of stress by not having them.

 

[winkle]

I got sick to death with guppies. I tried stock from Pets@Home and two different local fish shops. None of them lasted well. Out of 8+ guppies bought at varying times I had one shop bought male and one shop bought female that lasted more than 4 months from purchase date, though these two fish's lives never crossed paths. The only guppies I had for any length of time were those who'd been born from a female who was pregnant when I bought her (she died within a fortnight or so of dropping them).

I was then left with a population of brothers and sisters. Not wanting to encourage inbreeding I swapped the 4 brothers out for 4 new males from the LFS. These new males all died within the month (and were no where near as robust looking or big-tailed as the males I'd swapped for them). Fortunately some of my remaining guppy sisterhood must have been impregnated at some point as I found some more fry. I now have a completely home bred population again, but they do look like real mutleys. Blue/green with lots of dirty black smudges, bits of red... a mess really!

So I decided to go hell-for-leather and bought a load of albino blue topaz fry from a Fancy Guppies UK member. They are in quarantine at the moment and I've only had them about 10 days now, but they are all still alive, looking healthier and bigger than the day they were delivered. By this point I had expected at least one or two of them to have died, started to look ill or behave strangely. Its daft but it feels almost twilight-zone to have non-home-grown guppies that aren't desperate to kick the bucket.

I will never, ever bother with shop bought guppies again. I hear they are mass produced in guppy farms before being shipped internationally and it seems to show. They have been turned into a poor quality product, as harsh as that reality is. I will only be buying/swapping guppies with hobbyists from now on.

 

[Iiriva]

The bending of the spine gives at least two options: lack of calsium, or fish tubercolosis. Their poo is also telling about either internal parasites or tubercolosis. About 80% of aquarium fishes carry it in their bodies, but won't have it affective if water conditions are good for them and there is no lack of anything in their systems. Sadly, there isn't cure for it.

By this knowlidge, I'd say it could be tubercolosis.

Though, there are many symptons that can be found in many diseases. Tubi is very aggressive and effects every fish in the aquarium, mind you, you can also get it from your fish! You can't be 100% sure about tubercolosis without microscope though.

It's a difficult thing to say, because if it is, you could lose every fish you own. Don't buy any new fishes for a while now, you're going to lose them.

Even then, when the water is allright, the stress can make fish go ill.

Some illnesses are difficult to know for sure, and some are beyond cure.

 

[ripil]

all my guppies seem to end up with problems. after alot of bother and head scratching and the fact the other fish are totally fine i think its the breeding method and old age. i now keep swordtails. they are more active than guppies and not had a problem with them at all. altho their fry seem to be alot more delicate.