Frustrated Newbie

[Moorzy22]

Hi All,

Looking for some advice if possible I’m only 4 months into the hobby & was loving it until most of my aquarium died to white spot/Ick this was about 5 weeks ago now so I treated the fish as soon as I got some advice (would recognise this a lot sooner if happened again god forbid) I have been left with 2 Guppies & 1 swordtail who were all doing fine. My plan was to give it a month hope the virus died & keep an eye on existing fish & continue with the hobby.

I was planning to get some more guppies this week however now one of my guppies seems unwell, Hiding a lot not eating etc…. All water condirions on my test are good (0 nitrate 0 ammonia) & have not changed anything really in my tank apart from the water changes, so could this be down to stress due to bullying as he is the smallest of the 3 & should I add more guppies to get the community back in the tank? Or is this a sign of white spot reappearing but no show on the actual fish?

Really frustrated as I thought I overcome the disease & was on the up, really want to continue with the hobby but just don’t know what I’m doing wrong…. I’m very careful & read alot of articles about everything….. I was going to get the guppies tommorow but now after this fish taking a turn I just have 0 clue…

Thanks for any help!

 

[Colin_T]

White spot (Ichthyophthirius) is a protozoan parasite and has a specific lifecycle. If it has not shown any more white dots during the last 5 weeks, then it is gone.

Pictures of the fish and maybe a 1 minute video of it so we can check it for disease?
You can upload videos to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.
If you use a mobile phone to film the fish, hold the phone horizontally so the footage fills the entire screen.

Don't add any new fish until we work out what is wrong with the current fish. If it is sick and you add more fish, you could infect them. If the new fish have a disease it could infect your current fish and you could lose the lot.

Guppies and lots of fish from shops are regularly infected with diseases and it's a good idea to quarantine any new fish for at least 2 (preferably 4) weeks. A quarantine tank is generally a smaller tank with a filter, heater, plants and gravel that new fish live in for a month before being added to the main display tank. If you only have a few fish left in the main tank it's probably not worth getting one now due to the fact you might only lose a couple of fish if the new ones bring in a disease, but if you plan on adding fish regularly, then a quarantine tank is something you might consider setting up.

If your fish ever act unusual or look off colour, test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH; do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate; clean the filter; post pictures of the fish and ask for help asap. The sooner you ask for help, the more chance of the fish surviving.