New To Forum And Need Advice

[Lalah]

Hello,
my name is Lalah and im new to this forum.

I have recently got new fish and its my first time having tropical fish. three of my male guppy fish died within the first few weeks and now one of them has a blosted tummy.

I have noticed that he does not swim strongly and often hides behind plants and stays at the bottom of the tank. He is eating well but does not look to happy and one of the other male guppy keeps on bulling him.

I am worried and dont kno what to do, i dont want to lose another fish. i would like to get some others soon but dont know if thats such a good idea at the moment.

please help if you can, i would be greatful for your help.

Lalah x

 

[JenCliBee]

Hi & Welcome 2 the forum


rite firstly was the tank cycled by this i mean making sure there is sufficient bacterial growth in the filter 2 convert ammonia into nitrite into nitrate...going by the fish dieing i presume not. first thing 2 do is have a look at the fishless or the fish in cycleing process u will find it pinned at the top of the this part of the forum this will explain alot.

if the tank was cycled wot are the water stats ie. ammonia,nitrite,nitrate levels and PH and wot size tank?

once this info is given it's gives us more of an idea 2 help u


jen

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there and welcome to the forum, it seems you are in a situation a lot of newcomers to the hobby find themselves in.

they go to the fish shop are sold and tank and all the gear, told to fill the tank with water for 2 weeks then just add fish, or sometimes told not to wait at all and get fish the same day.

Unfortunately this is a pretty bad idea, it exposes the fish to dangerous chemical levels and without close monitoring and regular water changes it will invariably result in deaths or diseases.

Added to which you've been sold guppies which are quite a weak fish, they're massively inbred to get the fancy tails and as such the gene pool is weak and they are prone to diseases.

So I'm sure you can imagine how dangerous chemical levels in the tank coupled with weak fish is a recipe for disaster.

However don't panic unduly, this is something we see nearly everyday and we've got a lot of people through it with no serious problems. The first thing you need to do is to have a good read through of the link in my sig 'whats cycling', this explains the whole process to you, what the different chemicals are and how to measure and control them.

Once you've read that through post back with any questions that you have and we'll ffer some more advice from there.

 

[Lalah]

Thank you for your advice

when i first bought the tank, the people who sold it to me told me to wait a week before getting any fish. I returned to the shop a week and a few days later and got 11 fish, these were: 6 Neon tetras and 5 guppy fish. the first two guppy died within a few days and i took them back to the shop to find out if they could tell me why they had died. they told me that it was stress related however i did have some problems with oxygen levels. I told them about this problem and they said that there was nothing i could do but wait for the tank to build up oxygen on its own. I thought this was a bit strange but they are the experts so i didnt question it. They were probably correct because the oxygen was fine after a few days. I then bought 2 new guppy fish and one died the next day. The one that is ill at the moment is one of those 2.

I dont really know much about all of those chemicals but i will read up on them and let you know of any questions i have about the whole thing. The size of the tank i think is 35L.

one thing that i am worried about at the moment is that whatever the disease is may spead. I have read up on a disease called 'Dropsy' and its seems like it could be what my fish has. If this is the case would it be best for me to remove him from the tank? If this is what i need to do i might have to panic because i dont have another tank.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

as i suspected then, you've two linked problems then,

as i said above the tank won't be properly cycled, because of this you have dangerous levels of ammonia and nitrite in the tank, because of these levels the fish have contracted some sort of disease. so now you've got the chemical levels to sort out and the disease to diagnose and cure. like people fish need the best possible conditions to recover from a disease, imagine if instead of a nice clean hospital you had to try and recover from something sat in a room full of exhaust fumes all day, you can imagine how it's not the best environment and the stress alone can make it worse.

So priority no 1 is to get the ammonia and nitrite steady at 0, to know if they're at 0 you need a test kit. for the time being it's safest to assume the worst so you should be doing 50% water changes every day until you can get the water tested and confirm that the levels are steady at 0.

It's best to get a test kit yourself although the pet shop can test it for you if needs be. if you do go to the pet shop and get them to test the water make sure you get the actual numbers and write them down, fish shops are notorious for saying levels are 'fine' when they really aren't. Can get a link to prove this if needs be!

Next priority is to diagnose and treat whatever disease you have going on at the moment, now diseases aren't my speciality really, so best to put a post up in the emergencies forum, if you link it to this topic it will provide some background for the people who answer it. Just give as much detail as you can in the symptoms you are experiencing and they will try to help.

 

[Lalah]

ok thank you very much,
one more thing b4 i do that, this might sound like a stupid question but do i always have to remove the fish from the tank when i do these 50% water changes?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

no, just drain the tank to half full then top it up with new dechlorinated water