Guppy birthing problems

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Bmtiz92

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Sep 16, 2011
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Memphis, TN
This has happened twice now or I wouldn't post about it...Water specs are as follows - Amm - 0, Nitrite - 0, Nitrate - 10. Tank is a 20 High, tank is kind of in transition right now so it's a little bit overstocked, there's several guppies, three young dojo loaches, 3 GBRS (waiting on a pair), MTS, 2 mystery snails. I have several females squared off and getting ready to have drops, however,one of them had a drop last night and now has done the same thing as her mother. Her stomach is sunken in, she has what almost looks like her guts coming out, and her gills are sticking out. Everyone else looks fine and happy. Is this just genetic? This particular guppy is only about 6 months old, and her mother quickly died soon after doing this.
 
Because many guppys were bred with thier siblings for so log the guppy you have now probably comes from a log line of the inter breeding. This can cause birth defects and what you. Said about the sunken belly
 
Even though she was bred with a male from a completely different line? This only happened after she had her babies, too. That's what is so weird about it.
 
its probibly in her genes though. if she was the offspring of the mom that had this problem then its genetics.
 
I just did a massive water change and I'll see if that helps her out at all...Hopefully she'll pull through even though her mom didn't. I'll keep an eye on the rest of the line and hopefully this doesn't happen again.
 
Bmtiz92 said:
I just did a massive water change and I'll see if that helps her out at all...Hopefully she'll pull through even though her mom didn't. I'll keep an eye on the rest of the line and hopefully this doesn't happen again.

I hope your guppy will be okay...
 
Me too :/ this is so weird. Her mom was my favorite guppy so I was so glad to have her baby and now that she's doing the same thing this just sucks.
 
If You keep breeding the young, You could lose that gene but it will take many times and some culling
 
You might try getting some StressCoat+, I got mine from petco (great chemicals, great decor and food prices, not so good fish) it acts as a dechlorinater in regular doses, but when you double the dose it adds a slime coat to the fish and repairs scale damage (which will calm your deformed guppy and hopefully induce some recovery) and, just so you know, the bottle does say to dose double for fun repair, I'm not making it up :) one of the main ingredients is aloe. It's a great switch for dechlorinater too! Because, it still has a good effect on the fish in small doses, just not really fin repair. And, you know, in my opinion (and seriously just an opinion) I feel better using the stress coat because now that I look at plain dechlorinater it looks almost harsh compared to stress coat, and I will never, ever, switch back to plain dechlorinater.

So, yeah, that big paragraph was just something I thought might help with your guppies recovery (I love guppies, they're my favorite) I hope yours gets better soon!

And, also +1 on the genes. I wouldn't breed the offspring though, they might carry the gene and just not show it (if it's recessive) and it might cause internal problems that show up even before birth, but aren't noticeable on the outside. But, don't cull the whole batch, just sell them with strict instructions not to breed them, or keep them in their own tank/tank divider area. Or if you're really done with all the gene talk, just feed them to the other fish (and no, genes cannot be transferred through being eaten by another. The other fish will just get a high protein snack)

Hope I helped :)
 
I think I have some stresscoat lying around somewhere so I'll give it a go. I'm about to do another big water change, the other seemed to have perked her up just a little bit. She's eating, and her stomach is still sunken, but she does look a little bit better so I'm happy about that. I'm going to set up my ten gallon and separate her out.
 
I was reading on cories and it said for sunken stomached on them you gotta make sure they're well fed and do lots of pwcs, assuming its a similar situation I'd try that :)
 
Small frequent water changes wouldn't hurt. Try adding double stress coat to the water your adding, seperate her so she Dosent get picked on, and so u can see her eating
 
I have a 10g, and I dosed 25 (not sure of unit measurement) and it made my guppy relax enough to have babies. My point is that higher doses than double can have a good affect on fish! Especially stressed ones :)
 
Seems my stress coat is expired so I'll have to get some for her in the morning. I went ahead and moved her to the tank by herself but she seems a little freaked out alone so I may move one of her sisters in with her just to keep her company. Hopefully the stress coat will calm her down a bit too.
 
Keep a few females with her. Guppies are social animals and keeping her all by herself will make stress level go up, making matters worse. Keep 2-3 females with her, she'll like being with friends :)
 
I wound up moving her back into the big tank because for some reason she was just wigging out in there. On the plus side, she looks great! Gills are no longer sticking out at all and she's eating like crazy. She's still a little bit thin for my liking but I'm spot feeding her and also feeding her extra and she's looking really good. She's gone from hiding in the corner to wandering around the tank. I got some new plants and picked up a piece of driftwood and she's loving the extra cover. Fingers crossed she may be stronger than her momma!
 
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