Simply Bad Luck With Guppies!

[GuppyGoddess]

Well, I brought home what I thought was a cute, healthy, active orange guppy last Wednesday. I did a very long 3-hour process of acclimating him to the tank.

First sign of trouble was he didn't eat. I wrote that off as him being new and getting use to the tank. Well, a few days went by and still he wouldn't eat. I tried freeze dried blood worms. . .still no eating. Well, over the last few days, he began gasping for air. Today, he wouldn't get up from the bottom of the tank and when I netted him, he barely tried to escape.

I took him to the pet store and the gal there said that finding hardy guppies nearly impossible these days. Is this really true? The guppy tank I have is my son's. Right now, the guppy tank population includes one male - fully grown and two small females (around 1/2"). I want to buy a 20-gallon for them and their fry, but now I fear that whatever fish I put in there will contaminate the tank/filter, etc.

What are the tricks to keeping guppies happy/healthy (other than a cycled tank)?

 

[Rezatii]

Guppies used to be super hardy, and I'm guessing wild ones (like, go out and catch it yourself wild) still are, however, years and years of people going out, buying guppies from the same spawn (aka siblings) and breeding them, then breeding them to their offspring and brothers and sisters and cousins and parents and aunts and uncles, has made a giant net of super inbred, gorgeous, but delicate kind of guppy.

I'm not a guppy expert, I like 'em, but sort of regret adding mine to my tank, so I'm not really sure the best way to keep 'em, however I would suggest, like with any fish, a nice long quarentine period before they go in with any other fish.

 

[GuppyGoddess]

Yep. . .if I do get a 20-gallon, then I can use the current 5-gallon as a quarentine. The only issue is they're my son's fish (well he considers them his even though I take care of them) and he's confused by them becoming sick, etc. I've euthanized three and taken two back to the LFS so they could do the dirty work and my son becomes upset every time. It's a total bummer. I'm not sure what other fish I should try instead. We have four bettas, but I don't want to breed them due to them not being able to be kept in the same tank. (We have four betta tanks right now and that is enough work as is!)

 

[OldMan47]

What kind of water do you have GuppyGoddess? I find that guppies are indestructible but I have water that is generally considered way to hard and way too high in pH for most fish. Guppies, mollies, platies and swords all thrive in it with very little attention. I feed food that is high in vegetable content to most of my livebearers, including the guppies, and they just proceed to fill their tanks with fry with very little help from me. I would check into the hardness of your water as many of the livebearers do not do well in soft water. Most of my guppies have come from that top rated of all places, the big chain store, so I am sure they are the best possible quality around .

 

[GuppyGoddess]

Okay, I checked the website for my city's water quality. The link to 2008 is broken, so I had to copy the one for 2007.

Here we go:
Alkalinity: 13.4-28.4 average 20.3
Calcium Hardness: average 8.9
Hardness: 9.2-13.8 average 11.3
Ph average: 8.6

Do these numbers indicate what the problem is? There are additional information on the website that I can provide if you need those.

Is it the water that is killing the guppies? Which other fish would you recommend and/OR should I be looking into PH lowering products?

ETA - is the water parameters okay for betta fish as my other four tanks consist of those guys/gals.

Thank you for any help.

 

[OldMan47]

I would not be very concerned about the pH. Are those hardness numbers in degrees or ppm?

 

[GuppyGoddess]

They're PPM. Getting the API test should help me figure out the exact numbers since the water co. results are a few years old.

 

[OldMan47]

Those numbers, as ppm, are very soft water. If you look at that tank twice the pH will change. Soft water like that is wonderful for many of the tetras, angels and similar fish. Cories would really love it. Guppies will not adapt well to extremely soft water like that. Unless you choose to add to the water hardness, you should avoid the common livebearers that you will see in a fish shop. If you chose to raise the KH and GH of the water, you could do so using some calcium carbonate in its various forms which includes limestone, crushed shell or crushed coral. That will move the water toward a pH of close to 8 and increase the hardness. Withpout a hardness test kit, this will be a chancy thing to do.