Sick Guppy

[zimma]

hey guys i woke up this morning to see one of my guppies lying on the bottom of the rocks in a tunnel, and its tail fin whilst still as intact as it was when purchased, had a black edge, as well as the whole body had slightly darkened, i was wondering what disease this could be?? atm i cant find the fish again (had to get to uni so couldnt do anything till i got home) , so wondering if its been devoured by my other fish or i dunno where it could be... so atm im more worried it could be a disease that can spread to other fish..

i also wondered if it could just be stress... lately my rosy barb and zebra danio have been biting and attacking each other (going at each others body not tails could these two fish who seem to get a bit close to guppies when this happens affect the guppies health but i have no idea what to do about the danio and barb...

 

[Colin_T]

guppies have all sorts of diseases and regularly go dark when stressed or sick. Quite often it is skin parasite like costia but it can also be a bacterial infection. Salt is often used to treat both but can't be used with corydoras or discus in the tank. Use 1 heaped tablespoon of rock salt, swimming pool salt or sea salt per 20 litres of tank water.

If you only have 1 danio and 1 rosy barb they are hanging out together because they are schooling fish and need companions. When the tank has settled down from the guppy problem you should get a few more of each species to keep the ones you currently have, happy.

 

[zimma]

theres 2 danios and 1 rosy barb, ill see if i can find the guppy however im still having no luck in my tank i currently have 5 guppies (maybe 4..) , 2 danios and a rosy barb, unfortunately i dont have the room to get more fish tragic circumstances aside..., the danios are what came with the tank along with 2 goldfish (one died with a dead barb in its mouth... , the other well the danios ate it and had to be euthanized...) the rosy barb was bought well as a feeder fish without knowing what they were, i had 3 or 4 but well the biggers got eaten by the goldfish which died...

i beleive i have pool salt, rock salt and sea salt so might add heaped teaspoon in then, i dont have any corys or discus, just the barb, danios and guppies. ill do a water change first thing tomorrow morning as a precuation as well and hopefully no more die.. no others have discolouration so with any luck its a isolated case

EDIT: ok i found the guppy hes under a big rock head first under my filters stream... so my guess is hes dead and the movement is from the filter current... none of the other fish have the same signs so should i still put salt into the water?

 

[Colin_T]

a bit of salt won't hurt the fish that are left, and if it was parasites then the salt should prevent it from infecting the other fish.
The dose for the salt is 1 heaped tablespoon per 20litres. Do a water change and gravel clean first. Then put the salt in.

 

[zimma]

ahh ok will do, its 1am over here in melbourne and the old folks are asleep so ill do it first thing tomorrow morning all the other fish "appear" fine (no discouloration, or signs of illness) but i geuss theres no real knowing, unfortunately here we also suffered the typical melbourne weather of bloody hot one day (tank got to 32 even in shade with a small gradual water change...) to it being cold the following morning... thanks for the advice and hopefully there wont be anymore casualties luckily we got some more rain so the water tank is full again

UPDATE: ok update today turns out the guppy isnt dead, it had just gotten stuck under the filter stream and run out of energy i geuss... so today i rushed out and decided to invest in something to serve as a hospital tank and while i know most people here hate small tanks i was on a budget and big W were selling bowls that were just under a gallon in size with everything for a setup and filters for 10 bucks so i bought both and set up a small bowl with a 200L a hr filter which is a tad powerful and causes allmost a whirlpool.... i grabbed a lump of filter wool out of my cycled tank and set it up immediately putting the ill guppy in there (was being attacked by other fish ) he occassionaly swims around looking happy but then will allmost give up, sink to the bottom of the tank and start breathing really quickly... so any advice would be appreciated i have a video its just not uploading onto photobucket properly so will post it once its uploaded

 

[zimma]

ok heres the video link, its gills are moving very fast and its not extremely active but hey its returned from what i thought was the dead so its a improvement...

 

[Colin_T]

same salt treatment as suggested above.

 

[zimma]

yeah ive been using that treatment, and so far the fish has picked up an has periods of activity before it just lies down on the rocks... so its definitely gonna be hit and miss i beleive, all the other fish are doing fine so looks like a isolated incident

 

[Colin_T]

All you can do now is just see how things go over the next few days. Don't bother feeding the guppy at this stage. Wait until it is moving around normally again before you offer it anything to eat.

 

[zimma]

ok cool ill wait and see what happens and not feed the guppy hes regained a bit of his colour and some of the blackness is dissappearing, so with any luck he will survive thanks for all the help colin, much appreciated

EDIT: just went past to see the guppy on the gravel sideways not breathing, flicked it with the net and its definitely dead this time.. i tried my best and he seemed to recover briefly but unfortunately no luck, at least now i have a hospital tank to remedy this sooner should it happen again

 

[Colin_T]

sorry to hear about him not making it.