Okay, I've wracked my brain, searched the web, the forum, everything I can think of. So now I need some more experienced help. I'm going to try to be as detailed as possible, I hope nobody minds. While I've done a lot of reading, I'm still a newbie to the hobby and find identifying behaviors a challenge.
First off, here are the stats in my tank---
Tank- 10g, cycled (I have never had an ammonia or nitrite reading. Established with borrowed filter media.) Filtered w/ Air Pump.
Inhabitants- 5 (now 3) fancy male guppies, 1 african dwarf frog, 1 amano shrimp, 1 mystery snail
Tank age: 4 months, 3 with fish
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 15
PH: 7.6
Tested: Every 2-3 days
Temp: It's warming up now, so the water is getting to near 80 degrees by midday, while in the morning it is around 75 (sometimes lower).
I removed my heater about a month ago after the temp started getting alarmingly high. (Around 82 if I remember right)
Water changes: Weekly, 20%
When gravel vac-ing, usually around 40%.
Aged, dechlorinated water or tap dechlorinated water.
A note about my water changes- I only have 2g of aged water, so with the larger changes, my habit is to use the aged water first, then use tap water, add dechlor, shake it around, and then add it to the tank. If it is too cold, I boil water (cold water from the tap) over the stove and add that until it meets or is near the "finger test" temp before adding it to the tank.
Feeding: 2x daily, flake food for the guppies. Every other day thawed frozen bloodworms for the ADF & Reptomin pellets. Snail & shrimp get whatever leftovers there are.
Symptoms:
Trying to remember everything here... Let's see.
When I first got my guppies, I made sure to buy them from LFS that is reputable, been around a while, individually filtered, had great tanks and informed employees. My first venture, I bought three fancy tailed guppies (2 yellow, one green) and acclimated them slowly over an hour, adding bits of water to their bags. They adjusted well and seemed happy, although the two yellow ones constantly picked on the green one.
About a week and a half after being added to the tank, I noticed that after feeding my ADF his blood worms, a couple of the guppies were "glancing" (I think that's the right word for it) against the gravel near where I fed my ADF. I thought it was some sort of behavioral thing, since they only seemed to do it after I fed my ADF (I watched them for the next few days to confirm). My original thread on it is here. Since they didn't seem to be doing it too often, I assumed it was some kind of territorial thing, or that perhaps they were trying to stir up more food.
I think it was about a week later that I bought 2 more guppies (from a different store, also very clean, informative and longtime established. The original store had the tank I got my first 3 guppies from had the guppy tank quarantined) and an amano shrimp, and added them to the tank, using the method described above.
Everything seemed to be fine. I wasn't seeing any more of the glancing, the aggression was spread out and poor Greeny wasn't getting all the attention. I was a little concerned when I noticed one of their tails had a split, but I had read that it was a common problem due to inbreeding, and it had healed itself smartly after one day.
Snap to two weeks later. (According to my Log, it was April 28th) One of my original 3 guppies was exhibiting clamped fins. I watched him for about two days. At times I would find him clamped, other times he would seem fine. Eating well, active, seeming happy. Finally one morning I went to the tank and his little tail was clamped tightly, with a red spot showing at the very tip.
I set up my little 1g quarantine tank (using water from his original tank so as not to send him into shock), added 1 drop of aquarisol and 1 teaspoon of salt (added gradually over 15 minutes). As soon as he entered the QT tank, he lost all of his gusto. He stopped swimming around, stopped eating and just looked pitiful.
The next day he was no better, and I noticed his guppy "brother", the other yellow one also was showing clamped fins. Deciding to nip this in the bud, I transfered him to the QT tank. To my horror and frustration, he died the next day. By the end of that evening, the first guppy I had QT'ed had also given up the ghost.
I don't know what caused it. I even bought a magnifying glass to inspect for flukes, and didn't see any sign of them. There was no signs of velvet, no sign of itch and until I QT'ed them, they ate well and were active. They looked exactly alike, could it have been some genetic flaw? Did I medicate them improperly? Am I a terrible fish keeper?!
*sigh*
Today, I have three guppies remaining in my 10g. The two I bought from the 2nd store, and little Greeny, the trooper from my first foray into guppies. There have been no signs of clamped fins, but I can remember one time seeing one "glance" off the gravel. While Greeny seems fine, one from the 2nd batch (Orange) has multiple splits in his tail which may be due to his constant bullying back and forth with Leroy. I'm going to start 20% water changes every other day and see if that has an improvement, but I'm also concerned that Orange seems to be doing a bit of a shimmy. Not often, and usually it's fast enough that if I blink, I miss it. Sometimes I'm not even sure if it's not just him swimming excitedly due to him and Leroy chasing each other. Everyone is eating fine (probably even better than fine since I bought shrimp pellets for my ADF), are active, curious and never hide.
Question is, should I medicate? What should I use? What could it be? Will medicating ruin the cycle I've worked so hard for? Would my ADF, Snail and Shrimp be okay in a 1g tank for the duration of any medicating I need to do? Am I leaving out some important step that is harming my fish? I've tried to think of everything...
Anyway. If you've gotten to the bottom of this post, thank you so much.
If you don't want to bother with all the details but think you can help,
please let me know what could cause glancing, clamped fins, red spot on fins, splits in fins, and shimmying.
First off, here are the stats in my tank---
Tank- 10g, cycled (I have never had an ammonia or nitrite reading. Established with borrowed filter media.) Filtered w/ Air Pump.
Inhabitants- 5 (now 3) fancy male guppies, 1 african dwarf frog, 1 amano shrimp, 1 mystery snail
Tank age: 4 months, 3 with fish
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 15
PH: 7.6
Tested: Every 2-3 days
Temp: It's warming up now, so the water is getting to near 80 degrees by midday, while in the morning it is around 75 (sometimes lower).
I removed my heater about a month ago after the temp started getting alarmingly high. (Around 82 if I remember right)
Water changes: Weekly, 20%
When gravel vac-ing, usually around 40%.
Aged, dechlorinated water or tap dechlorinated water.
A note about my water changes- I only have 2g of aged water, so with the larger changes, my habit is to use the aged water first, then use tap water, add dechlor, shake it around, and then add it to the tank. If it is too cold, I boil water (cold water from the tap) over the stove and add that until it meets or is near the "finger test" temp before adding it to the tank.
Feeding: 2x daily, flake food for the guppies. Every other day thawed frozen bloodworms for the ADF & Reptomin pellets. Snail & shrimp get whatever leftovers there are.
Symptoms:
Trying to remember everything here... Let's see.
When I first got my guppies, I made sure to buy them from LFS that is reputable, been around a while, individually filtered, had great tanks and informed employees. My first venture, I bought three fancy tailed guppies (2 yellow, one green) and acclimated them slowly over an hour, adding bits of water to their bags. They adjusted well and seemed happy, although the two yellow ones constantly picked on the green one.
About a week and a half after being added to the tank, I noticed that after feeding my ADF his blood worms, a couple of the guppies were "glancing" (I think that's the right word for it) against the gravel near where I fed my ADF. I thought it was some sort of behavioral thing, since they only seemed to do it after I fed my ADF (I watched them for the next few days to confirm). My original thread on it is here. Since they didn't seem to be doing it too often, I assumed it was some kind of territorial thing, or that perhaps they were trying to stir up more food.
I think it was about a week later that I bought 2 more guppies (from a different store, also very clean, informative and longtime established. The original store had the tank I got my first 3 guppies from had the guppy tank quarantined) and an amano shrimp, and added them to the tank, using the method described above.
Everything seemed to be fine. I wasn't seeing any more of the glancing, the aggression was spread out and poor Greeny wasn't getting all the attention. I was a little concerned when I noticed one of their tails had a split, but I had read that it was a common problem due to inbreeding, and it had healed itself smartly after one day.
Snap to two weeks later. (According to my Log, it was April 28th) One of my original 3 guppies was exhibiting clamped fins. I watched him for about two days. At times I would find him clamped, other times he would seem fine. Eating well, active, seeming happy. Finally one morning I went to the tank and his little tail was clamped tightly, with a red spot showing at the very tip.
I set up my little 1g quarantine tank (using water from his original tank so as not to send him into shock), added 1 drop of aquarisol and 1 teaspoon of salt (added gradually over 15 minutes). As soon as he entered the QT tank, he lost all of his gusto. He stopped swimming around, stopped eating and just looked pitiful.
The next day he was no better, and I noticed his guppy "brother", the other yellow one also was showing clamped fins. Deciding to nip this in the bud, I transfered him to the QT tank. To my horror and frustration, he died the next day. By the end of that evening, the first guppy I had QT'ed had also given up the ghost.
I don't know what caused it. I even bought a magnifying glass to inspect for flukes, and didn't see any sign of them. There was no signs of velvet, no sign of itch and until I QT'ed them, they ate well and were active. They looked exactly alike, could it have been some genetic flaw? Did I medicate them improperly? Am I a terrible fish keeper?!
*sigh*
Today, I have three guppies remaining in my 10g. The two I bought from the 2nd store, and little Greeny, the trooper from my first foray into guppies. There have been no signs of clamped fins, but I can remember one time seeing one "glance" off the gravel. While Greeny seems fine, one from the 2nd batch (Orange) has multiple splits in his tail which may be due to his constant bullying back and forth with Leroy. I'm going to start 20% water changes every other day and see if that has an improvement, but I'm also concerned that Orange seems to be doing a bit of a shimmy. Not often, and usually it's fast enough that if I blink, I miss it. Sometimes I'm not even sure if it's not just him swimming excitedly due to him and Leroy chasing each other. Everyone is eating fine (probably even better than fine since I bought shrimp pellets for my ADF), are active, curious and never hide.
Question is, should I medicate? What should I use? What could it be? Will medicating ruin the cycle I've worked so hard for? Would my ADF, Snail and Shrimp be okay in a 1g tank for the duration of any medicating I need to do? Am I leaving out some important step that is harming my fish? I've tried to think of everything...
Anyway. If you've gotten to the bottom of this post, thank you so much.
If you don't want to bother with all the details but think you can help,
please let me know what could cause glancing, clamped fins, red spot on fins, splits in fins, and shimmying.
Thanks so much for your help.
