What's Wrong?

[kribensis12]

Okay, i posted in another emergency thread, that i had several guppies die in the same week. Now, just the other day i had a adult female die, and last night i had a 4 month male die. No signs of ich, or any ecternal diseases. Current stocking is about 2 adult females, 1 adult male, and about 5 4 month females. They are all in a 20 gallon flat hexagon tank. I checked the water, and it is :
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20
ph: 8.4-8.6
Kh and Gh: N/A

Wilder suggested in my other thread that they may be dieng of old age. But a 4 month old male? I had great hopes in breeding him, and switching lines so i can have not so inbred guppies. But , obviously i cant do that with a dead male. I really need to know whats going on because im going to Florida next thursday and i cant leave with a peace of mind knowing that i may come home to a tank full of dead guppies ( i am confident that my other tanks will be fine). So, please HELP!

 

[kribensis12]

HELP?

 

[Colin_T]

Guppies usually die from bacterial infections. If there are no other fish in the tank you could add some salt and this would help get rid of a lot of skin & gill parasites and also cut down the amount of bacteria on the fish. Increasing the GH of the water will also help reduce the bacteria in the water.
Maybe do a big water change and complete gravel clean and see how they do.
A picture might also help find the problem.
The PH could be an issue if there is lots of food going into the tank or if a fish dies. Any ammonia produced in water with a high PH will be very toxic and could kill or weaken the other inhabitants.
You might also try de-worming the fish and treating them for gill flukes.

 

[kribensis12]

I had a 4 month old female die today. No abvious signs of disease. This morning she was fine, and then i went to the mall, then i came back and she was dead. It was weird. I cant lower my ph, i've tried, but it bounces right back up.I could definatley provide pictures of the dead fish, but she has been decomposing all the after noon ( havent had time to get her out as i've been busy. I'll go take a picture right now and then flush her.

*back*.
Here is the pic:

Sorry abotut he quality, the flash was on, the room was too dark to have it off, and i used our bad camera, and the fish ahs been dead for about 6 hours. I dont see what info you could gather by the picture, but your the expert, not me. I really need to get this solved before i leave.

 

[kribensis12]

Okay, i went to petsmart ( not my favorite place in the world) and they tested my water. For my 20g:
Ammonia:0
Nitrite :0
Nitrate: 20-30
Ph: 8.6
Kh and Gh: Both wayyy over 300.

For my 30 community it is the same as the 20g. But the 30 fry tank is worrying me.
It is:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate:55ish
other stats are same in other tanks. The Nitrate worries me. I will do a W/C ASAP. They lady suggested internal parasites but it cant be that because then my fish would be skinny, and not eating, which isnt the case. I cant get any aqaurium salt. They were out of it.

ALSO, if they did have worms, i couldnt treat ti, we dont have anything good around here to do it. I might be able to try the medicated food, but im not sure they have worms.

 

[Colin_T]

The fish in the pic has a weird shaped stomach that might have been caused by being in the bin or by an internal problem. Its tail looks a bit clamped up, if it was like that in the tank when it died then it is probably something like costia or chilodonella. These will both kill fish very quickly but are also easy to treat. Any medication with Malachite Green in should do the job. If you can get Waterlife Protozin or Wardley's Promethyasul then either of those should both work. Treat the tank for a week to 10 days and see how they go. Both of those medications will also treat bacterial infections so you are pretty well covered with whatever it is.

Intestinal worms won't be killing this many fish this quickly. The fish that do die from them usually become thin and sluggish over a course of weeks before eventually dieing from lack of blood. Therefore it's unlikely to be worms.

You can use rock salt or swimming pool salt instead of aquarium salt. Any swimming pool shop will have 20kg bags of the stuff for a couple of dollars. Add 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20litres of water. If you have corydoras catfish or angelfish/ discus in the tank then don't use salt.

To work out the volume of water in the tank
measure Length x Width x Height in cm
divide by 1000
equals volume in litres

When measuring the height, measure from the top of the gravel to the top of the water level. If you have big rocks or driftwood in the tank, remove them before measuring the height.

Before you treat the tank do a 50% water change and complete gravel clean. This will reduce the gunk in the tank and allow the medication to work more effectively. It will also lower the pathogen count in the water and mean there are less nasties around to infect the fish.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating otherwise it will absorb the medication out of the water.

50ppm of nitrate isn't too bad. it is preferable to keep it as low as possible but 50ppm won't kill fish.

The 300ppm GH & KH is why the PH won't drop. You have very hard water which won't be a problem to the guppies but it is why you have a high PH. You will have to make sure the filters are always running properly and you don't overfeed. Otherwise you could get an ammonia reading which will kill fish when combined with that PH.

 

[kribensis12]

It was a pregnant female, and she was supposed to give birth next week, which is why her sotmach is like that ( i have 2 other females like that). Her tail was not clamped at time of death, it was like that because she was out of water when i took the pic. My tank is a 20g flat hexagon USG . I do have a med with Malachite Green and Formalin in it, i suppose i could treat with that, but i still dont know whats wrong with them. Also, my filter is a AquaCear and i removed the carbon when i bought it and threw it away. I always have the filter on, and i clean it out every 2 weeks. I am still conserned about the Nitrates because the fish are still young. i do my best to not over feed. I just take a pinch and put it in.

 

[Colin_T]

the easiest way to lower the nitrates is to do daily 30-50% water changes. If you are doing partial water changes each week then just increase it to twice a week.

Malachite green and formalin will treat most things so you may as well start treating and see if it helps.

 

[kribensis12]

okay, thanks!

 

[kribensis12]

Nothing else has died yet, so fingers crossed! I am doing a HUGE w/c today on all my tanks so nothing goes wrong while im gone.

 

[fish.com1]

you should'nt flush your fish down the loo because it can spread disease to other native fish.