Mysterious Guppy Deaths

[dhawker]

I have been having problems with guppies dying in one of my tanks for a few months now and I really don't know why. I currently have a 55 gallon cichlid tank, 10 gallon fry tank, and a 29 gallon community tank. The problem I have been having is in the community tank.
I have a pengiun 350 dual biowheel filter on the tank (supposedly for up to a 75 gallon). For stock, I have two angelfish (~2.5" each), two opaline gouramis (~2" each), and I had 4 guppies in there (one male 3 females). I do frequent (weekly at minimum) water changes, and have been testing the nitrates frequently (20 ppm just prior to water changes). The problem I have been having is that the guppies seem to die about one a week...and usually completely at random. They seem completely normal at night, in the morning they are just gone, or dead. I am actually now down to just the male left as of today. The pH (tested this morning using industry grade pH paper...there are perks to working as a chemist and having an aquarium) and it was right at 7.5. The tap water in my area is quite hard, and since I only keep fish that do well in hard water and use artificial plants, I don't really bother testing the hardness because I don't care to try and adjust it. The tank has been up and running for over a year, and I have had the angels in there for about 10 months. I am convinced they are completely healthy because they regularly lay eggs even though they are both female. I am confused because the cichlid tank I set up used water and substrate from this tank to get cycled, along with one female guppy (who is still in there with the cichlids) and she is doing amazing. I change all the water on my tanks at the same time, use the same water conditioner, etc... I am pretty sure I don't have any problems with diseases because I haven't seen any problems in my other fish in the same tank. Any ideas would be helpful...I have about 20-30 guppy fry (from the cichlid tank female) in my fry tank that hopefully will someday make it to the community tank but if I keep having this problem with just the guppies it will be a waste of a lot of time and effort caring for them. Any ideas??

Thanks

 

[FishAddict99]

After having guppies for a while, I also found them to die frequently in my tanks. I thought it was disease but eventually, I figured it was my tap water. The water in my town had a Ph of over 7 but I didn't think much of it. I'd always considered guppies to be hardy fish. Well I got fed up and for the past 2 months have been using stop & shop bottled water (Acadia). I tested it and it has a Ph of 7. Since then, the guppy fry I've been raising have been healthy and seem to be thriving. Only time will tell if this problem is fixed, but so far so good. Hope that helps!

 

[dhawker]

There has to be some other option besides buying water.... if I have fry and adults in other tanks that tolerate the same water source, maybe it's something else? Also, don't guppies tolerate hard water anyway?

 

[OldMan47]

I have water that measures between 300 and 325 ppm of TDS, pH of 7.8 and I find that the hardness using an aquarium test kit gives me a GH and a KH of around 10 to 12 german degrees. Your water sounds a lot like mine DHawker. I seriously doubt that the water source is your problem. I would look more to the fih supplier as a possible problem. I have guppies right now that I got at my LFS and lost one after another. I finally got a female that gave birth in my tank before she died. Since then, I have no problems at all with my guppies. I suspect the ones I was getting at the LFS were the victims of shipping stresses and similar problems because the guppy is a very popular fish and shipments come into the LFS almost every week. I can't really blame the LFS because they never have the fish in their tanks long enough to influence their health much.

 

[dhawker]

Thanks for the info....they were petco guppies, I couldn't resist a sale. I guess I will have to wait until the ones I have now grow up some more. On that note....any suggestions on feeding fry for someone who actually has a full time job and a life which makes it impossible to feed them 8 times a day as suggested? They are almost 2 weeks old, but I can already tell they aren't growing as fast as I'm sure they could.

 

[OldMan47]

If you feed once in the morning, once when you get home and right before you go to bed, it will be enough for good growth. I have spirulina flake food that I add for all of my livebearers and a few other fish because the standard flake has too little vegetable matter for many fish. The vegetable matter will bring the adults into better condition for breeding and will help the fry grow up healthy. They sometimes grow quickly with foods like BBS but I prefer to have hearty healthy fish when they are grown.