JamesAndGuppies
Aquarium Advice Newbie
Hi,
With a heavy heart I must admit, my first attempt at guppy keeping is having a worst possible start. I did a good bit of research on guppies before buying them, however I didn't know anything about aquariums and didn't realise that I had to cycle my new aquarium, nor they have informed me at the pet shop. They did ask how long the aquarium has been set up for, but said that's fine and did not even mention anything about the dangers the fish would be put it... Should I known, I would've cycled the aquarium before purchasing fish, as a thought of potentially causing discomfort to the fish is absolutely devastating. I am using Prime and trying not to overfeed, doing daily 20% water changes, sometimes 50%, making sure it's the same temperature as tank (25°C). It's been 1week and 1 day, I've vacuumed gravel aswell to get rid of waste to reduce amonia, cleaned the decorations. Fish seemed happy and colourful, never showed any signs of stress, not evem during water changes or vacuuming. The are 4 fish, one of them (the red mosaic) we brought from the shop with incomplete tail, bits missing. Back then, I had no idea about rot disease, or that amonia burns could've done that and so on. But the tail was not white around it, nothing was inflamed. However, this morning I woke up to two more fish having tail problems. The black tail one has bits missing, like something's taken a few bites out of it and the other's tail has a clean split in it. Fins are not damaged on any of them. Looked for amonia streaks/inflamation on bodies , do not appear to be present. There is still one fish with a whole tail. Water parameters are not perfect, but while the tank is cycling I come to realise that it is not going to be and all I can do is my best to introduce new clean treated water frequently. All of the guppies are male and I did see them fight and nip at each other lately, so maybe that could be something to do with it? I have attached some pictures and hope that someone might have a better idea on just how worried I should be about the split tales and offer some advice that worked for them. And please, try not to judge me, therefore I have made an uninformed choice to buy fish after a day of being gifted an aquarium and now I have to live with it trying to make sure my fish are as comfortable as possible. Thank you.
With a heavy heart I must admit, my first attempt at guppy keeping is having a worst possible start. I did a good bit of research on guppies before buying them, however I didn't know anything about aquariums and didn't realise that I had to cycle my new aquarium, nor they have informed me at the pet shop. They did ask how long the aquarium has been set up for, but said that's fine and did not even mention anything about the dangers the fish would be put it... Should I known, I would've cycled the aquarium before purchasing fish, as a thought of potentially causing discomfort to the fish is absolutely devastating. I am using Prime and trying not to overfeed, doing daily 20% water changes, sometimes 50%, making sure it's the same temperature as tank (25°C). It's been 1week and 1 day, I've vacuumed gravel aswell to get rid of waste to reduce amonia, cleaned the decorations. Fish seemed happy and colourful, never showed any signs of stress, not evem during water changes or vacuuming. The are 4 fish, one of them (the red mosaic) we brought from the shop with incomplete tail, bits missing. Back then, I had no idea about rot disease, or that amonia burns could've done that and so on. But the tail was not white around it, nothing was inflamed. However, this morning I woke up to two more fish having tail problems. The black tail one has bits missing, like something's taken a few bites out of it and the other's tail has a clean split in it. Fins are not damaged on any of them. Looked for amonia streaks/inflamation on bodies , do not appear to be present. There is still one fish with a whole tail. Water parameters are not perfect, but while the tank is cycling I come to realise that it is not going to be and all I can do is my best to introduce new clean treated water frequently. All of the guppies are male and I did see them fight and nip at each other lately, so maybe that could be something to do with it? I have attached some pictures and hope that someone might have a better idea on just how worried I should be about the split tales and offer some advice that worked for them. And please, try not to judge me, therefore I have made an uninformed choice to buy fish after a day of being gifted an aquarium and now I have to live with it trying to make sure my fish are as comfortable as possible. Thank you.
