Guppy clamped tail, weird body

[fishtonic1]

Hello all,
I have 4 guppies in a quarantine tank (all parameters, hardness are in check)

Tank was correctly dosed with salt and have slowly started removing salt from tank over last few days. I have noticed one of my guppies has got... it looks like guppy scoliosis?? And his tail looks clamped toom it was definitely bigger at first.

He is active like all the other fish and isn't showing any obvious signs of disease (other than previously mentioned signs)

Any ideas?
Cheers

 

[Aiken Drum]

How long have you had the fish?

 

[Andy Sager]

Clamped fins are usually a sign of improper water quality (usually hardness with livebearers) or parasitic infestation. The scoliosis is a typical sign of Fish TB unfortunately but usually that's an up and down shape not a side to side shape. The caveat to that is if the spine is only crooked part of the time. If so, it's not TB but the fish reacting to something irritating.
If you do not see any parasites under closer inspection, ( I suggest using a good magnifying glass), I would add the salt back and see if that straightens the fish out.

 

[fishtonic1]

How long have you had the fish?

Just over a month

 

[fishtonic1]

Clamped fins are usually a sign of improper water quality (usually hardness with livebearers) or parasitic infestation. The scoliosis is a typical sign of Fish TB unfortunately but usually that's an up and down shape not a side to side shape. The caveat to that is if the spine is only crooked part of the time. If so, it's not TB but the fish reacting to something irritating.
If you do not see any parasites under closer inspection, ( I suggest using a good magnifying glass), I would add the salt back and see if that straightens the fish out.

Okay I will add salt. I was hoping to add the other fish to my main tank tomorrow. Should I still do this, or keep them in the second salt dose?

 

[Andy Sager]

Okay I will add salt. I was hoping to add the other fish to my main tank tomorrow. Should I still do this, or keep them in the second salt dose?

Keep everybody is the quarantine tank until they all are okay. If this is a parasite, the other fish would most likely already be carriers so no sense letting that loose in your main tank. I'll also add that if the salt does the trick, your main tank may need to be salted as well if the water matches the current parameters in the quarantine before adding the salt.

 

[fishtonic1]

My plan was to drip acclimate salt into the quarantine tank for a couple of weeks, then change 15% water daily to slowly remove salt until 100% gone, Is this OK?
Also, how much salt would you reccommend for a parasite?

Cheers

 

[Andy Sager]

My plan was to drip acclimate salt into the quarantine tank for a couple of weeks, then change 15% water daily to slowly remove salt until 100% gone, Is this OK?
Also, how much salt would you reccommend for a parasite?

Cheers

It will depend on the parasite. Confirm that is what the problem is first.
What you need to realize is that Guppies can live in a brackish type water which means a harder water than other fish. All common livebearers, Guppies, Mollies, Swordtails, Platies live just fine in salted water. It's other fish that have the issues if they come from soft waters. So for now, the experiment is: If the salted water fixes the problem with the Guppy, it shows that the tank water does not contain enough of the minerals needed to keep that Guppy healthy so diluting it again does not serve any purpose. It also means you will need to be careful with what other fish species you plan on adding to the tank with the Guppies.

 

[fishtonic1]

It will depend on the parasite. Confirm that is what the problem is first.
What you need to realize is that Guppies can live in a brackish type water which means a harder water than other fish. All common livebearers, Guppies, Mollies, Swordtails, Platies live just fine in salted water. It's other fish that have the issues if they come from soft waters. So for now, the experiment is: If the salted water fixes the problem with the Guppy, it shows that the tank water does not contain enough of the minerals needed to keep that Guppy healthy so diluting it again does not serve any purpose. It also means you will need to be careful with what other fish species you plan on adding to the tank with the Guppies.

Right so if salt fixes it, I should keep salt in the tank. And if it doesn't fix, I should use other medication.
How much salt would you reccommend?

 

[Andy Sager]

Right so if salt fixes it, I should keep salt in the tank. And if it doesn't fix, I should use other medication.
How much salt would you reccommend?

Make sure it's non iodized salt and I use 1 tablespoon per 19 liters or 1/2 Teaspoon per 3 liters. Depending on what kind of non iodized salt you use, for something like rock salt ( large pieces), you can add it directly into the tank as it will dissolve slow enough to not shock the fish. If you are using smaller grain salt, I'd dissolve it in some tank water then drip it into the tank so that it slowly raises the salinity.

 

[fishtonic1]

Make sure it's non iodized salt and I use 1 tablespoon per 19 liters or 1/2 Teaspoon per 3 liters. Depending on what kind of non iodized salt you use, for something like rock salt ( large pieces), you can add it directly into the tank as it will dissolve slow enough to not shock the fish. If you are using smaller grain salt, I'd dissolve it in some tank water then drip it into the tank so that it slowly raises the salinity.

Unfortunately he passed away :,(
So I should still keep salt in the tank just in case the others have the parasite?
Also adding to this, if i wanted to get another guppy to replace this one, how would i acclimate him into the quarantine tank, if it already has salt in it?

 

[Andy Sager]

Unfortunately he passed away :,(
So I should still keep salt in the tank just in case the others have the parasite?
Also adding to this, if i wanted to get another guppy to replace this one, how would i acclimate him into the quarantine tank, if it already has salt in it?

Well, it seems that whatever it was was not effected by the salt so if your other guppies were doing okay without the salt, I'd slowly reduce the salt level in the tank through daily small volume water changes. For the time being, I would not add any new fish while the remaining Guppies are in quarantine. When you are quarantining anything, the clock goes back to zero when you add a new item, even on day 59 out of 60 so it's not recommended to do. Once the other fish are placed into the main tank after quarantine, you can just change 100% of the water in the quarantine tank and refill with new water.

And for the record, to add fish to a tank with water that has been treated, you should use the drip method to acclimate a new fish to the new water.

 

[fishtonic1]

Okay now one the guppies in quarantine is lying on the ground, lifeless. I poked it and it slight moved, but it looks close to death. He was showing no signs of anything, his fins are fine too?
I'm not sure why this has happened

Edit: he is swimming around now, but inconsistently and at weird angles, like he doesn't have fully control and letting the filter move him around at times. He is swimming with his back fin and not really using is side ones.

Ammonia is at 0.25, so i just water changed. Also I haven't started removing salt just yet, will keep salt for now. I realised I forgot to turn filter and heater back on after water change 2 days ago, they are back on now after water change

Edit 2: now he's swimming around normally. He looked literally on the brink of death, and 3 hours later is fine again. Weird...

 

[Andy Sager]

Okay now one the guppies in quarantine is lying on the ground, lifeless. I poked it and it slight moved, but it looks close to death. He was showing no signs of anything, his fins are fine too?
I'm not sure why this has happened

Edit: he is swimming around now, but inconsistently and at weird angles, like he doesn't have fully control and letting the filter move him around at times. He is swimming with his back fin and not really using is side ones.

Ammonia is at 0.25, so i just water changed. Also I haven't started removing salt just yet, will keep salt for now. I realised I forgot to turn filter and heater back on after water change 2 days ago, they are back on now after water change

Edit 2: now he's swimming around normally. He looked literally on the brink of death, and 3 hours later is fine again. Weird...

Not really weird. Without the filter, the water loses dissolved oxygen and the nitrifying microbes can go dormant due to lack of food so that effects the fish negatively. Also, if the temperature went too cold, the fish will become less active from being cold. The fish acting normal a couple of hours after fixing these things shows you how important they are.

 

[fishtonic1]

Not really weird. Without the filter, the water loses dissolved oxygen and the nitrifying microbes can go dormant due to lack of food so that effects the fish negatively. Also, if the temperature went too cold, the fish will become less active from being cold. The fish acting normal a couple of hours after fixing these things shows you how important they are.

Ah I see. I will remember to turn it back on next time!! I was worried it could be some sort of parasite or something. But I'll start removing the salt now slowly

 

[fishtonic1]

Not really weird. Without the filter, the water loses dissolved oxygen and the nitrifying microbes can go dormant due to lack of food so that effects the fish negatively. Also, if the temperature went too cold, the fish will become less active from being cold. The fish acting normal a couple of hours after fixing these things shows you how important they are.

Just a quick question, what amount of what change would you recommend to remove salt from the tank? And how many water changes?
Cheers

 

[Airborne 82nd]

If you plug your light into the same power strip as your filter and heater it may help you notice something is off later that evening.

 

[Andy Sager]

Just a quick question, what amount of what change would you recommend to remove salt from the tank? And how many water changes?
Cheers

I would do small changes daily so a 5%-10% water change once a day until you no longer have a saline level would be how I would do it. HOWEVER, if you notice the fish start to act differently or look poorly after a water change, that's a sign you've diluted the salt level past a point it needs to be and you need to readjust it. There are couple of easy ways to test the salt level ( i.e. Hydrometers, Refractometers, digital testers) so they take the guess work out of it. I'm "old school" and have only used hydrometers but not all will register really low levels of salt but digital testers should. ( Just make sure they do before you purchase them. )