Mark Hewitt
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Two weeks ago I put 3 guppies into a 17 gallon tank with 5 black skirt tetras.
Within the first hour one looked like he had a chunk out of his tail, and was dead the next morning. We went to the pet store and replaced him.
3 days later the blue guppy started looking lethargic and bloated and was dead the next morning.
The yellow and orange ones continued on fine for another week until orange began gasping at the surface, the yellow one was there too but seemed ok. About 3 days later orange died, although not before I noticed he had a very raggedy tail.
Yellow was at the surface most of the next day and had a red line all down the back of his tail, so we went to the LFS to see what they could suggest. They said, best thing was just to give him some hidning places. When we returned he was swimming around the tank, seemingly fine.
Next thing we knew, he had got himself caught on the intake of the filter! Unable to move. We unplugged the filter and he swam free, but it looked like his tail had been shredded
. At that point the black skirts started hounding him and nipping at his tail even more.
No surprise he died a couple of hours later. So now we have no guppies.
I did think of just getting some more, but I don't want them to die the same as the rest, are guppies just not compatible with black skirts, or is it something else?
Throughout my ammonia and nitrites have been zero and nitrates at 5.
Within the first hour one looked like he had a chunk out of his tail, and was dead the next morning. We went to the pet store and replaced him.
3 days later the blue guppy started looking lethargic and bloated and was dead the next morning.
The yellow and orange ones continued on fine for another week until orange began gasping at the surface, the yellow one was there too but seemed ok. About 3 days later orange died, although not before I noticed he had a very raggedy tail.
Yellow was at the surface most of the next day and had a red line all down the back of his tail, so we went to the LFS to see what they could suggest. They said, best thing was just to give him some hidning places. When we returned he was swimming around the tank, seemingly fine.
Next thing we knew, he had got himself caught on the intake of the filter! Unable to move. We unplugged the filter and he swam free, but it looked like his tail had been shredded
. At that point the black skirts started hounding him and nipping at his tail even more.No surprise he died a couple of hours later. So now we have no guppies.
I did think of just getting some more, but I don't want them to die the same as the rest, are guppies just not compatible with black skirts, or is it something else?
Throughout my ammonia and nitrites have been zero and nitrates at 5.
