Mysterious Deaths

[#1 Fish Fan]

I HAD a male guppy that had a fat belly, nipped tail, recently shorter fin on his back, lumps on his fin but no longer, laying on the bottom of the gravel in strange positions, and it couldn't swim properly. Sadly this ended yesterday as he died. What could of caused this

Also, a week before the death a male guppy died mysteriously after just a week in my tank.

After the death of the guppy that died yesterday, I went out. When I came back I found my male Plath to be dead on the gravel floor. As I was out I don't know what happened.

Any ideas of why this happened would be appreciated.

 

[Ilyas]

1. Was there any issues before adding the newest guppy to the tank?
2. If no issues before the new addition, how did you go about adding him to the tank? Straight from the LFS bag with water and all or did you use another method?
3. Did the find look eaten or rotten?
4. Can you go back to the store and see the condition of the fish in the tank you got yours from? (they may have changed it all ready though)
5. How often do you change and test water? Do you know your parameters (test results)?
6. How big is the tank and what is the stock before deaths and after deaths?
7. Did you inspect the bodies of the other dead fish at all? If you did, what did you see?

 

[phoenixgsd]

as above really, we need to know the tank size, water stats other tank mates so we can advise better

 

[#1 Fish Fan]

The tank size is 34L. Their tankmates were (not including dead fish) a 4 month old guppy, 1 mollie, 1 siamese fighter, 1 platy snf 1 octocinclus. I got the dead guppy from the same place I got my octocinclus and he is fine at the minute.

 

[Ilyas]

Ok so this is an 8-9 U.S.gallon tank. I have to assume all these fish lived in this tank together before the deaths started. I also have to assume you do not do water tests. This is a rather small tank for all these fish. In most cases I follow the inch per gallon rule (1" of fish per gallon of water). I use there adult sizes to determine this. The Platy and Molly would like a schole of at least 5 each. They do not school, but feel safer in numbers. They also have a tendency to beat each other up. Another thing with Mollies and Platies is there bio-load. They give off a lot more ammonia then your average fish. They are both brackish water fish also, though they can live in unbrackish water they prefer brackish.

With the symptoms you gave and the numbers of fish with no idea what your water quality is, I am leaning to believe your fish are suffering from dropsy. Either from stress, ammonia poisoning, poor water or a combination of them. Here is a link with a good article to explain it. This site likely has a page talking about it too. http/freshaquarium.about.com/od/termsandtables/p/Dropsy.htm
Fortunately this is an easy fix, best of luck and I hope I was able to help you.

 

[phoenixgsd]

agree with whats been said but, can you tell us what the water stats are please, and yes your stocking is a little iffy, guppys and bettas dont always get on, bettas will nip fins of other long finned fish, (i assume your betta is male) he will be mistaking the guppy for another male betta, which will be stressing him as well as possible poor water quality