Added guppies Thursday 2 have died and a neon tetra now guppy and tetra look poorly

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Rioroo

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jul 23, 2012
Messages
9
Tank readings today
Nitrates 0
Nitrites 0
Ammonia 0
Ph. 8.2

I established my tank around 10 weeks ago levels were all perfect and properly cycled before adding any fish. First I added 4 plates, 1 male and 3 female. No problems whatsoever lots of babies saved 10 and put in nursery all thriving.

Added 6 neon tetras 5 weeks ago. All great no problems happy healthy fish.

Then Thursday around 5.30pm I added 6 male guppies. By Saturday evening 1 was dead, it appeared to spend all it's time at the top of the tank and was being swept around by the filter current, it seemed unable to swim around only it's gills we're moving.

By Sunday night another was dead. This one had acted strange from the off. Constantly swimming in the filter slipstream,not moving around the tank like the others just on a "treadmill" constantly swimming in the slipstream. Then Sunday it seamed unable like the other to swim around and was spending all it's time at the surface gills just moving until it finally dies and just floated.

Today a neon which had been acting very subdued the day before acted the same way appearing to be paralysed and lost all it's colour from halfway down its body to the end. It's now died.

I have another guppy acting odd spending all it's time at the surface it's swimming sporadically but jets off and appears to have no concepts and just crashes into the side of the tank then doesn't seem to move for ages just floating at the top. As I'm typing it's just sunk to the bottom and is lying on the sand!

My poorly tetra is acting very subdued staying in one place login the water at the back of the tank hidden.

I went to maidenhead aquatics this morning and was given eSHa minaroll. I've added 19 drops as per the instructions. I tested my water this morning with Ali master test kit and took a sample of water to the shop for double checked and got the same results as advised at the beginning of my thread.

I'm sad I've lost fish everything was going so well till I added the guppies. Have they brought some disease into my tank? I really don't want to loose any more fish please help if you have any useful advise I would greatly appreciate it.

It's my first post on here so apologies if I've gone on just wanted to give all the information.
 
How big is this tank? Am I right in assuming you did a fishless cycle with bottled ammonia? Is the tank planted?
 
Sorry the tank is 95litres. I have 5 live plants in there and yes i did fish less cycle.
 
Could be the guppies came in sick. Im intrigued as to why you have no nitrates at all. This is not normal in a lightly planted stocked cycled tank.

What kind of plants and what is your water change schedule?
 
I have two grass like plants and three others of the same type not sure of the name but the are tall green with lots of foliage it's sold in bunches sorry got them from the aquatic centre. I change around 20 litres once a week.
 
Rioroo said:
I have two grass like plants and three others of the same type not sure of the name but the are tall green with lots of foliage it's sold in bunches sorry got them from the aquatic centre. I change around 20 litres once a week.

Hmm.. If you can get pictures of the plants people here might be able to id them Have you done anything to your filter media recently?

Can you quarantine any of the sick fish?

For now I'd keep checking water quality. The best cure for most things is good water.
 
Well sadly the guppy has died this evening.

No not changed anything in relation to the filter. Just concerned about my other fish now, the tetra looks lethargic and very still, and I've noticed another guppy swimming round the tank with its "nose" to the surface :(
 
Do you have a filter that breaks up the surface? I'm wondering if its the oxygen levels in the water? This really is starting to sound like a water quality rather than an illness... but at the moment I'm lost!

Again can you quarantine the fish behaving oddly?
 
Well I can't quarantine as I don't have another tank but another tetra was dead this morning and another guppy is clearly dying. Yes the over flow of the filter does break the surface of the water by the middle and end of the week when the water levels have dropped is this bad? What does this do to oxygen levels I thought it would add and I thought that was good as a lot of people add air stones bubble walls etc? If you have any suggestions they would be gratefully received. Thanks
 
Rioroo said:
Well I can't quarantine as I don't have another tank but another tetra was dead this morning and another guppy is clearly dying. Yes the over flow of the filter does break the surface of the water by the middle and end of the week when the water levels have dropped is this bad? What does this do to oxygen levels I thought it would add and I thought that was good as a lot of people add air stones bubble walls etc? If you have any suggestions they would be gratefully received. Thanks

I'm sorry to hear of the deaths. It's possible you had an ammonia spike when you added the new fish. How did you acclimatize them? What about your ph has that been stable? I was asking about the filter flow because fish hanging out near surface is generally a sign of low oxygen but it sounds like your fin.

If there was an ammonia spike this might be due to gill damage. That would explain the fish trying to seek oxygen at surface even if the levels in the tank are fine.

I'm sorry I'm not being more helpful. My suggestion is to keep sound small frequent water changes and keep an eye on the water parameters.

Perhaps others can chime in with suggestions.
 
I floated the fish in the bag in the tank and added tank from my water into the bag every 10 minutes for an hour, then I netted the fish out and added them to the tank. It's the process I follow each time I've added fish and never had a problem before. I also didn't turn on the lights for a couple of hours afterwards and didn't feed that day. My tank .ph remains constant when I do my weekly tests, ammonia has always been 0 when testing so I'm just not sure what's going on. I'm hoping I don't get home from work later to find more sick fish! My platters seem strong as ever ad do the plate babies but I know these are harder fish but the babies are in a netted nursery but seem to be thriving. If anyone has any suggestions. Have I just been unlucky here? Thanks
 
My thoughts on an ammonia spike is that it could have been quite quick increase that could have been missed.

Anyone else have ideas?
 
Would this explain why I still seem to be getting sick fish? I added them Thursday late afternoon first on died overnight Saturday. I did a water change Sunday morning and checked levels all 0 and again 0 Monday?
 
Rioroo said:
Would this explain why I still seem to be getting sick fish? I added them Thursday late afternoon first on died overnight Saturday. I did a water change Sunday morning and checked levels all 0 and again 0 Monday?

If there was enough gill damage yes. It would be like lung damage. It's not necessarily a quick death.
 
So how would I ensure this didn't happen again when adding new fish? If this is in fact what has happened will all my fish die? Is there a precaution you can take? Thanks
 
So how would I ensure this didn't happen again when adding new fish? If this is in fact what has happened will all my fish die? Is there a precaution you can take? Thanks

Add fish slowly, although 6 guppies isn't particularly fast but it could have been just a bit too fast for your BB. Also, when selecting fish at the store check out every fish in the tank carefully for signs of illness just in case. Try using drip acclimation instead of the floating method. It takes a lot longer but is better in the long run.

The ultimate answer is always quarantine. Run an spare small filter on your display tank and have a spare bare 5 or 10g tank somewhere then fill it up with 1/2 tank water and 1/2 tap water add the extra filter from the display tank (or steal half the filter media out of an existing filter) and add new fish. Keep them in this for at least 4 weeks. This will insure there is not illness or parasites. It also gets the fish used to the water parameters you maintain without potentially having one die and cause an ammonia spike in your display tank.
 
What's drip acclimitation? I added water from my tank every 10 minutes for an hour into the floating bag then netted them out? Can you please give me more information on this method as I'm not sure what it involved please. Thanks for your help.
 
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