poor guppies

[BigLou]

Hey, this morning I noticed that my 2 male guppies' tails looked they were being nipped at. Just wondering if you know what could have done this. They are in a 10 gal with 2 male platy, 1 female platy, 3 female dwarf platy, 4 neons, a couple shrimp and some snails (trumpet and pond). I thought it was strange that my female guppies are fine though. If anyone has a clue...help me out, thanks

I moved them in with my angels tonight, it's the only place I've got for them right now. They seem to be okay in there so far. Any objections let me know (note: the angels are too small to eat them, and are still peaceful so far, and they have hiding places so the angels can't get them.)

 

[snowyangel]

I find fin rot can appear very jagged on a fishes tail and may have that appeareance of being biten. I also find my male guppies get fin rot almost 2x easier than my females. I would put them in very clean water and treat with Melafix so no infection appears.

 

[BigLou]

Is there any way to tell the difference between tail rot and nipping. And is there any way to prevent tail rot? And does tail rot spread easily?

 

[BigLou]

I'm going with you on this one...it very may well be tail rot, especially considering I just got them Wednesday. I took them out of the angel tank as soon as I read your reply, and put them in one of my vacant 30 gal tanks with some salt and stress coat. I don't have any melafix, but if their conditions don't seem to get better soon, I will go get some. The tank was uncycled, but I put some mature water from my convict tank in there, which should help. I'm just trying to figure out which filter I will be putting in there. Thanks for your help, and any other suggestions are still welcome, especially any more info on tail rot.

 

[kitty falol]

In my exerience, fin rot is very often a secondary symptom of an internal bacterial infection. How is their swimming? Are they shimmying? Also, is their poo healthy looking, or long, white and stringy?

Is the tank fully cycled?

 

[BigLou]

They seem to be swimming fine...I'll have to check on the poo though. They tank they were in (the 10 gal) was fully cycled, the tank they are in now (the 30 gal) was not fully cycled, but I put about 7 gal of cycled water in from my convict tank, and I'm using a filter that was on the fully cycled 10 gal tank.

 

[BigLou]

I added some quick cure this morning. Let's see how that works on their tails.

 

[BigLou]

Just to let everybody know...they didn't make it. I blame Petsmart...I'm never getting anything from there ever again, this was my first and last time.