Can guppies get clamped fins from stress?

[phloxy]

I just moved, so decided to take the chance to add more gravel and do a bit of an update on the landscaping, as well as doing about a 50% water change since it got pretty dirty (my fried offered to care for them for a few weeks when I went home and did a terrible job).
My water filter also broke about a week ago so had to be replaced, but I cut an inch square piece of the old filter so the old bacteria could begin growing on the new filter (which various forum posts online suggested).
I woke up today to see 4 of my adolescent female guppies and one adolescent male had clamped fins, and are swimming in place (shimmying?) near the top of the water... The oldest female does not, and neither does my newest adult male.
Could they have gotten stressed from simply too much change, both water and scenery causing the clamped fins? If so what can I do to help?
Would water changes help or further the problem?
I'd just do a partial water change since it normally should be fine, but if the drastic change from pretty bad, yellow-tinged water to cleaner water is the cause I don't want to make them worse.

Also, I noticed they are looking almost pale. At first I thought it might be Velvet but the pictures I've seen on the interwebs look more splotchy and not all-over.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and I'll try checking back frequently between classes to add any additional info if asked/comes up!

 

[phloxy]

Just did a water test strip, and it read 40-80 nitrate, 1 nitrite, 7.0 pH, 120 carbonate hardness, and 120-180 general hardness.
So a bit on the high side but not horribly high according to the test strip chart.

Edit:
So I noticed that one of the females is swimming around a bit more than before. Fins are still clamped and is still shimmying, but much more mobile than a few hours ago.

 

[BBradbury]

Your Tank

Hello phlox...

Guppies are generally very hardy fish, but traces of ammonia and nitrite can definitely hurt them. If the water you remove is a different color than the new water, you're not changing it often enough. Work up to the point you're removing and replacing half the water weekly.

Add some floating plants like Hornwort to the tank. It will help maintain good water quality between water changes.

If possible, do a good job of vacuuming the bottom material for a few weeks and the water chemistry will improve and don't feed too much. Just a little bit of a variety every couple of days is enough.

You don't need to test the water as long as you're changing out large amounts of it. Wastes take time to build up. If you're changing it regularly, you know it's always clean. Just treat it with a product like Seachem's "Safe" to remove the chlorine and chloramine.

B

 

[phloxy]

Thank you for the reply!
I just checked my water parametres and everything is fine except nitrites are up a tiny bit.

Came back from school today and the palest fish was dead.
The other adolescents are still showing symptoms though...

Edit:
Could these signs be from being too warm? Just checked the temperature tonight and it climbed up to 30C. Normally the heater does it's job so I had the thermometer in my heaterless fry tank, but put it in this morning out of curiosity.

Edit2:
One of the affected females is swimming/hovering right above the gravel kind of hidden in a plant and right beside a decoration.
Hope all this random info is okay and not too bothersome... figured at this point anything abnormal I mention can get me closer to finding out how to save these guys.

 

[Matt68005]

What BBradbury said is all true. 1 nitrite is enough to make fish stressed. Stressed fish lead to sick fish. Can you describe the symptoms the other fish are showing? As much details as possible... I can point you in the direction of what ailment they have and what medicine to use, but OFC keep changing the water and vacuuming to get those nitrites(and nitrates, but these are generally considered safe around 20 or so) down and make the fish happier. So symptoms? You said hanging, that is likely water quality, and also shimmying, this can be any number of parasites, are their tails really drooping down, like the back part of their body?
86 degreese is a little warm and could be waay too much food that your "friend" feed them. I would lower it to 78 by turning it off and then checking temp every hour until its 78-80 range and then kick it back on. You said celcius.....what country do you live in? A lot of the medicine we have in the United States is not available in countries like Britain.

 

[phloxy]

Scratch that, apparently I remembered wrong and it's nitrates that were slightly high, and were at 20.
I unplugged my heater and have been keeping an eye on the temperature, hopefully that helps.
And other than the clamped fins, pale body colour, and shimmying at the top of the water (and possibly the one hanging out on/right on top of the gravel could be a sign) there aren't any other symptoms. Fin colouring is normal, no tears or tatters either. My ghost shrimp are also fine, and according to what I've read they are quite sensitive to bad water quality so I can't see the two tests I've done today being wrong.
I've been looking for things floating in the water and I noticed one fish had a whitish coloured poop, but it wasn't moving or anything so I doubt it was a worm parasite. Also haven't seen anything swimming around...
Three of the four affected ones that are left are also still eating.

I'm from Canada, so if it's a product I can get at Walmart or general pet stores I might be able to get suggested american products. Unfortunately I'm out in the boonies for college but will be going home in a bit over a week for the weekend and could go to an aquarium store. Unfortunately by the time I get back it'll probably be too late.

 

[Matt68005]

Hmmm. I would just go to Walmart and get some salt and "ick clear" or "fungus clear" and call it good. Whitish colored poop is a bad sign, and you cant see worms or paraites in the feces, their tiny. Im gonna ask two questions to try and figure this out man.
1. Are they breathing heavily?
2. Have you added any chemicals like algae clear?


I had this clamped fins problem for a long time. Couldn't figure it out either. Its usually just a sign of some bad water or chemical. Since im assuming you don't have a microscope or elctron microscope and cant do biopsy's (im kidding, maybe) theres not much we can do except make sure theres no chemicals in the water and keep chaning it. My fish in my basement fishroom had clamped fins for awhile, I could not figure it out, until eventually I figured out it was just mold spores from my damp basement. Could never really figure this one out, but theres good news, it never killed any of my guppies. They would just hang and be clamped, then pickup after a water change. I would be doing lots of water changes and vacuuming so that the nitrates go down and hopefully the parasite/mold whatever responsible goes away. look for the one with acriflavin/Victoria green, do some good water changes and vacuuming, and keep it warm 80-82 degrees, and if its what my fish had, it will eventually go away. I cant remember exactly what I did, but it was because my filters had too much bioload and because my basement was damp dark and cool.

 

[phloxy]

Awesome thanks for the suggestion!
Tomorrow I'll run and et some treatment. Do you think a general one would be okay, in case it isn't ich? Also, I've been looking things up and a few sites suggested adding salt and doing a salt treatment for 10 days. Is this something that could help, or is it just one of those things that are unproven?

And yes, they go through periods of breathing heavily. Could something in the original gravel have been stirred up when I put the new stuff on top?
The only chemicals I have are water conditioner I've had for about 2 months, and follow them according to the packages instructions.

Just looked in the tank and one of the females is darting around and bumping into the sides of the tank. Her gills also look a bit red and irritated, but it could be from how pale she is.

Sorry for all these questions, and thank you for helping me!

Oh yeah and about the microscope, the sad thing is that I'm sure my prof would let me use the ones in class if she was allowed to lol. Oh well.
Kind of funny because tomorrow we're looking for parasites in dog poop. Can't fish poop be good enough?

 

[Matt68005]

Yes get the ick clear with Acriflavin and Victoria (malachite) green if you can.....but general cure should work too. Salt is a disputed subject indeed. My own belief is that freshwater parasites and microbes can't stand high levels of salinity that guppies can withstand. If gradually acclimated they can stand up to or above even seawater marine strength. Next time you go on vacation, get some slow release gel food for them to nibble on. Better for them to be a little Hungary for a few days than have some idiot dump food in there and spoil your water. Basically I think your dealing with a type of mold, but either way the ick clear will take care of it because Acriflavin and Victoria green have limited anti-fungal properties to them. I think salt and turning up the temp with good vacuuming and PWC alot will do wonders.

 

[Matt68005]

I'm thinking of ordering one on Amazon for 50 bucks. Lol. You would have to sacrifice one for the guppy collective tho, you can't take fish poop you gotta smear their intestines and look at 400x....... Just a rant because it seems guppies are always be getting some kind of parasite.

 

[phloxy]

Okay, thank you so much!

I woke up today to find the one hanging out at the bottom had died. Her anus was very red and distended, I took a couple of photos in case actually seeing it would help.

 

[Matt68005]

Hmm. Now were back to what I was afraid of. But luckily you only need a few things to take care of this. (im not talking out my....a%%s I know how to cure this where even the mods don't....)
Your gonna need...
1. Epsom salt
2. Aquarium salt
3. Ick med containing Acriflavin and Victoria green
4. Frozen brine shrimp, or variety pack


Mix the aquarium salt at the rate of 1TBSP per gallon in your tank. Mix the Epsom salt at the rate of 1TBSP per ten gallons. Dose the medicine 1 per ten gallons until the tank is good and green.
Do nothing. Do not feed for 2 whole days at first, then just 1 special feeding. Treat them this way for 5-6 days.
Next, mix 1TBSP of Epsom salt with 2 cups of distilled water. Stir until dissolved. Get a small cup and take about 2-3 frozen cubes and thaw them in the Epsom salt solution for at least 30 minutes, an hour better. Get a eye dropper or one of those squeezy things for medicine and feed your guppies the brine shrimp/salt mixture. They will injest the Epsom salt directly and it serves as a laxative to expel any parasites in their gut. The acriflavin and Victoria Green will kill any free swimming form of the parsite.
After 5-6 days Put some carbon in there and your fish should be acting like guppies again.

 

[phloxy]

Okay cool. Couldn't find any ich treatment with the ingredients you mentioned, so will go searching at a different store tomorrow. Got the aquarium salt though and added that to start. Can get the rest of the needed stuff in the morning, hopefully before class.

Another one of my females died right in front of my eyes when I came home during a half hour break to see how they were doing.

The one female that is left is not looking too well either, honestly I'm not sure if she'll make the night. She also has a very small slit in her tail that just appeared very recently.
I thought of something else that is probably just a coincidence, but the only ones that are sick (so far at least) are all siblings. The two that are perfectly fine is the mother and a male I bought a month or so ago, both adults. Could there be some genetic thing going on, like a crummy immune system?
Or if it's a parasite could the other two have it as well but it doesn't affect them as much since they're bigger?

Again, sorry if any questions seem silly. I love learning new information and finding out what things could be happening in my little guys' systems. Unfortunately in my program fish are one of the few animal groups we don't cover haha.

 

[Matt68005]

No, by all meansl, i can talk guppies and fish disease all day long and keep up with the pros.....
It is probably a combination of inbreeding making them weak genetically, and Hexitima which is a parasite present in most fishes gut, especially chiclids and goldfish. You should note that other fish will seem to be fine, while guppies will slowly wither and die. Put some tetras or mollies or any wild type fish in there, and it will be fine. You can get the epsom salt from a grocery store, and feed them that with brine shrimp or spirila, or peas, bloating is the primary thing that kills them. You may be o.k with any ick medicine, Malachite, formalin, copper ect ect. Im happy to help, but they should carry "ick cure" at walmart that has Acriflavin and Malachite (victoria) green. This kills all the parasites in the water while the epsom salt (magnisum sulfate) is a laxative and will push the poo and hopefully the majority of the parsite out of their intestines. More than happy to help fellow guppy nuts!

 

[Matt68005]

BTW dont worry, your not the only one with this problem. It seems a drug resistant form of the gut parasite has been going thru some guppy/ornamental fish farms, and i have encountered alot of people with this problem. Could not figure out a cure as it resist the normal mecicine to treat it Metronidazole (flagyl) which is an anti-parasite antibiotic used to treat STDs of all things. There definately has been something like this going aroun, i myself battled it all fall before i finally read an article by Stan Shubel, who literally wrote the book on gupppies, that described how years ago he beat it. Epsom Epsom Epsom, that along with any ick medicine will probably solve their problem. Good luck let me know how it goes. I am very "on top" of diseases and afflictions because it is impossible to raise guppies without encountering alot of diseases.

 

[phloxy]

The last sick female just died, but I was able to get the ich treatment. Couldn't find any epsom salts that weren't scented with something but my friend offered to take me to another store tomorrow, but I tried with mushed up peas and neither of the sick fish would take it.
I feel so bad, not being able to have the time to take the long bus ride to get all the medicines right away...
Of course this had to happen during midterms.

The one thing that is good is that the two adults are doing fine, as of right now. Still swimming around and playing in the filter's current like normal.

 

[phloxy]

Bad news- the last sick guppy just died. He seemed to really perk up the last few hours, and was swimming about so I thought there was hope that I got to him in time.
Left to take a shower for maybe 20 minutes, came back and he was belly-up floating near where I last saw him.

 

[Matt68005]

That is too bad. IF you decide to get new guppies, they will come down with the same affliction, but the treatment works....