Guppies with Clamped Fins

[milana1006]

Help! Two of my guppies had a clamped fin and died. I recently noticed two of my other guppies now have clamped fins. I attached a photo of my water tests done and the guppies with clamped fins. Does anyone know what the problem could be? The temperature is set to 78 degrees. I added melafix to the tank today! Also, right now, one of those guppies is sitting at the bottom and barely swimming.

 

[Aiken Drum]

How long have you had the fish?

 

[milana1006]

How long have you had the fish?

Somewhere between 3 weeks and 5 weeks I believe. I got these guppies at different times and places.

 

[Andy Sager]

What's the pH of your water? Can't tell if your stick says 7.2 or higher.
Most often, Guppies and most other livebearers clamp up like that when there is a lack of minerals in the water which is why adding salt usually fixes that. The problem is the amount of salt they tend to respond to is more than the average live plant likes to live in. I would take your Guppies, all of them, and place them in a separate hospital tank and treat with aquarium salt at a rate of 1 tablespoon per 3 gallons of actual water.
Another possibility is a parasite like velvet. If this is the case, get a magnifying glass ( I get mine at the dollar store because they are big and cheap ) and you should see what looks like a yellow colored dust usually on the top of the fish. If this is the case, a copper based medication is going to be your fastest cure while darkening the tank and raising the temperature to above 82 will treat the problem if the fish is healthy enough to handle the delay in cure. Darkening the tank starves the parasite as they use photosynthesis to make their food and the heat speeds up their life cycle but doesn't really kill the parasite.

After whichever treatment you use and the fish all look healthy, add back one or two of the fish to the planted tank and see if they clamp up again. If they do, you will know that your water in there is not suitable for Guppies no matter what the test results say.

Hope this helps.

 

[milana1006]

What's the pH of your water? Can't tell if your stick says 7.2 or higher.
Most often, Guppies and most other livebearers clamp up like that when there is a lack of minerals in the water which is why adding salt usually fixes that. The problem is the amount of salt they tend to respond to is more than the average live plant likes to live in. I would take your Guppies, all of them, and place them in a separate hospital tank and treat with aquarium salt at a rate of 1 tablespoon per 3 gallons of actual water.
Another possibility is a parasite like velvet. If this is the case, get a magnifying glass ( I get mine at the dollar store because they are big and cheap ) and you should see what looks like a yellow colored dust usually on the top of the fish. If this is the case, a copper based medication is going to be your fastest cure while darkening the tank and raising the temperature to above 82 will treat the problem if the fish is healthy enough to handle the delay in cure. Darkening the tank starves the parasite as they use photosynthesis to make their food and the heat speeds up their life cycle but doesn't really kill the parasite.

After whichever treatment you use and the fish all look healthy, add back one or two of the fish to the planted tank and see if they clamp up again. If they do, you will know that your water in there is not suitable for Guppies no matter what the test results say.

Hope this helps.

I used aquarium salt on 3 guppies. One very sick. Two semi or starting to become sick. Next day they were all dead. I used a 5.5 gal hospital tank. I put about 2 teaspoons rounded of aquarium salt.

 

[Andy Sager]

I used aquarium salt on 3 guppies. One very sick. Two semi or starting to become sick. Next day they were all dead. I used a 5.5 gal hospital tank. I put about 2 teaspoons rounded of aquarium salt.

This may be from a few different reasons:
Did you check for Velvet or other parasites?
Did you measure out the actual amount of water you added to the tank? When empty, it should have held more than 3 gallons which means you did not add enough salt as my directions were for 1 tablespoon per 3 gallons of water. Using only 2 teaspoons would mean you could only have had 2 gallons of water in the tank for a proper dose.
Are all the sick or sickly Guppies out of the main tank now?
Did you use new water and add water conditioner to the hospital tank?