Dead guppy and one fin loss

[Claxton218]

I am an newbie and the tank is only a week and a half old. I lost a guppy yesterday after 24 hours of not looking good hanging out at the top or trying to lie down at the bottom of the tank. He finally died yesterday. When I was pulling him out I also noticed another guppy with its tail fin fraying slightly. This morning, the tail was all but gone. Is this stress? Will it grow back? I added a decoration for the guppies to swim through and was moving the decorations around for a little while after the first guppy died.

Here is the tank situation today:

29 gallon tank not through its first nitrogen cycle
tank started on 2/15/05
fish added on 2/18/05
pH 7.6
Alk 100
NO2 0
NO3 0
Am 0
Hard 100

Fish still alive:

2 long finned gold skirt tetras all males
3 male fancy guppies (just lost one had four and a second with almost no tail fin)

I have not vacuumed yet, but was planning on doing it tomorrow before adding more fish later this weekend.

I was planning on adding 2 female guppies and 2 more tetras this weekend, but I don't want to if they are going to suffer. The poor guppy with almost no tail is now laying at the bottom not looking to happy.

Help!

Thanks,
Claxton

 

[waterlilly]

Well did a search on them and here is a site with a little information as to why your fish may not have tails http://www.exotictropicals.com/encyclo/fresh/characins/whitetetra.php i could be wrong but it sounds to me like that you have a fin nipper somwhere.

 

[Claxton218]

8O

Thanks for the quick reply. I will read through the link you posted on the gold skirt tetras. I have not seen the tetras go near the guppies really. I also read somewhere that fin loss can be due to stress. It looks like I will loose the guppy since he is now hiding out. Any reccomendations on avoiding this in the future? When I add more fish, should I add some female guppies and more tetras to balance them out? After this guppy passes, I will be down to 2 guppies and 2 tetras, and looking to add more to the system. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance...

Cheers,
Claxton

 

[waterlilly]

Well i know from my 5 black widow tetras they tend to stay away from my guppies but my guppies dont stay away from them since guppies tend to like to swim all over. As far as them loosing them cause of stress i cant say that that is true or false maybe you should IM Guppy_man he could answer that question better. Do you have any thing on the floor that has pinchers? Hope this helps some :?

 

[RoK]

Is the tank cycled? Do you use dechlorinator?

 

[Claxton218]

Yes, we finally caught the one tetra tormenting the guppy that lost its tail. I took the two tetras out and put in more guppies, both male and female. Thanks for your insight on the tetra being the culprit. I guess it is an abnormally aggressive gold skirt. Hopefully this should solve most of my problems. Only time will tell.

Thanks for your help.

Ciao,
Claxton

 

[Claxton218]

RoK,

It was a new tank and is not through its first cycle. Yes, I used water conditioner when using the normal tap. I have a water softener on my house. When I first filled the tank my water hardness came up a goose egg. I then drained off about 40-50% and replaced it with straight conditioned tap. This is all before any fish were involved. I did not bring in the fish until 48 hours later when the temperature had leveled out at 78. I should be all set for the time being. Thanks for your help.

Regards,
Claxton

 

[RoK]

You should only have 0-2 fish when the tank isn't cycled. You can do a fishless cycle by adding ammonia or using bio-spira. Ammonia and later on nitrite goes really high when you have fish and the tank isn't cycled, it can be lethal. Ammonia and nitrite is very toxic to fish.

 

[JohnPaul]

I agree, I would hold off on any more fish until the tank is cycled.

Also, are you sure your test kit is accurate? I am looking at your results, you say you are getting readings of zero for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate...and this is a week after you've added fish? Even if you were doing water changes every single day I would expect there would be detectable levels of ammonia in the tank by now. Hmmm.... :?

 

[waterlilly]

Glad to hear that you figured out what was going on Claxton218

 

[Claxton218]

Dear JohnPaul,

I was frustrated with the test strips I was using and bought a liquid test kit instead. I am still not getting any traces or very little trace of ammonia even though two of you believe I should be seeing a little. Both the test strip and liquid testing go from 0 to 0.25 and I am definitely not getting 0.25 but may be slightly above 0. Not much if any. That is two test kits and both agree with the pet store also. The only thing I can see off in the tank is the water is a little soft and the alkalinity may be a little low. I will continue to keep my eyes on the levels.

Thanks for your help and thoughts.

Cheers,
Claxton