vertical guppies

[aeneas43]

I have 125L tank, heavily planted. no3-5 no2-0 Nh3/4-0 Ph 6.8, regular water changes20%-25% feeding various. mini pellet, dried bloodworm, fluval vegatable flakes, dried daphnia. temp 21c

(12)- now 9 Dragon tail guppies. 3 spotted coryadora

Problem: 3 guppies slowly succumbing to vertical swimming. There are some with slightly ragged tails Not sure about the slight variations in colour,( may be normal ) as they all came at the same time and I am not familiar with fancy guppies.
They all appear healthy ,active and feeding well.
The Cory's are doing good spawning at an alarming rate.

I am wondering if they are suffering from poor genetics- eg new unestablished strain.

 

[seangee]

What is the water hardness? We need the value and the unit because there are a few different ones. Corys will only spawn in very soft (usually acidic) water. Guppies require moderately hard water (usually alkaline).

My guess is your water supply is unsuitable for guppies and the same will eventually happen to any you keep. Trying to fix it will be bad for your Corys. It is only a guess at this stage although this is supported by the pH of 6.8. Post your readings and someone will confirm (or otherwise).

Note: there is no correlation between pH and hardness, but it can be an indicator.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Any chance of a picture and short 20 second video of the fish?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

If the video is too big for this website, post it on YouTube and copy & paste the link here. We can view it at YouTube. If you are using a mobile phone to take the video, have the phone horizontal so the video takes up the entire screen. If you have the phone vertical, you get video in the middle and black on either side.

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How long has the tank been set up for?
How long have you had the fish for?

What is the GH (general hardness) of your water supply. This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

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Your pH is a bit low for livebearers. They do best in water with a pH above 7.0.

Your temperature is a bit low for guppies from Asia. Depending on what else is in the tank, you should increase it a couple of degrees. 24C is a better temperature for them.

 

[aeneas43]

What is the water hardness? We need the value and the unit because there are a few different ones. Corys will only spawn in very soft (usually acidic) water. Guppies require moderately hard water (usually alkaline).

My guess is your water supply is unsuitable for guppies and the same will eventually happen to any you keep. Trying to fix it will be bad for your Corys. It is only a guess at this stage although this is supported by the pH of 6.8. Post your readings and someone will confirm (or otherwise).

Note: there is no correlation between pH and hardness, but it can be an indicator.

 

[aeneas43]

Thankyou.
GH 16* KH 10* PH 6.8
BTW The Corys' Where spawning in my other tank- I moved them for the increased tank size. In fact they left me two babies.
That is an unheated tank with WCMM and harlequin Rasbora.

 

[seangee]

GH 16* KH 10*

That's where the units are important. dGH of 16 is fine for guppies (degrees of hardness). 16 ppm (parts per million) is totally unsuitable for guppies (but great for corys). Your hardness is likely to be similar in all your tanks.

Please do post the pics/vid as @Colin_T suggests. Commercially bred guppies are prone to lots of things. My guess is purely based on the fact that you mentioned corys spawning.