One of my guppies is most likely sick.

[MRK17]

Hello everyone and sorry to bother you.
I cycled my tank with live plants for one and a half months. Saw the nitrite peak and everything then stabilized. So I did a water change, vacuumed off some decaying plant matter and algae from the bottom, and waited two more days. Water was ok so i bought my first fish. 6 guppies, 2m and 4f.

Acclimated them and they all seemed to be happy in the new tank, exploring and eating voraciously.

I immediately noticed one female guppy was a bit weird and not plump like the others. I've been keeping an eye on her for a few days now and I'm pretty sure she's sick. She still swims fine but doesn't eat almost anything, the other gups bully her, and her poop is white but not stringy.

To answer the questions in the sticky :
1~ Female guppy. Looks ok from the outside, if a bit discolored. Looks thin but not sunken in or hollow (yet). Doesn't eat and gets bullied. Follows food but gives up. Pooped once and it was pretty much all white. Sometimes hangs around the tank by herself.
2~ Ph is 7.5. Ammonia is undetected. Nitrite is between 0 and 1, probably due to the increased bio load. I'm doing 20% water changes daily. Nitrate is around 30.
3~ 70liters and set up by cycling with plants and ghost feeding.
4~ Filter is built into the tank, with mechanical, biological, and chemical filtration (purigen)
5~ 6 guppies, all fine except one which is probably sick from the start.
6~ I've been doing 20% water changes every day to keep nitrites down.
7~I've had them for 5 days.
8~the fish are all new.
9~i feed them 2 types of flakes. Everyone eats except her.

I have meds coming in the mail tomorrow. I'm from Italy and here I could only find these two products, from the Netherlands :
Esha 2000: general med, disinfectant
Esha ndx: med for internal parasites

Please help me save this guppy

 

[Andy Sager]

If the fish is being bullied, she should be isolated into another tank or add a divider in the main tank with her alone. White poo is not normal unless the fish has been eating white foods. If that's not the case, that's a sign of intestinal worms which are more common in Guppies these days. I'm not familiar with those exact medications but I would use the one for internal parasites first if isolating the fish does not improve her disposition.

Hope this helps.

 

[MRK17]

If the fish is being bullied, she should be isolated into another tank or add a divider in the main tank with her alone. White poo is not normal unless the fish has been eating white foods. If that's not the case, that's a sign of intestinal worms which are more common in Guppies these days. I'm not familiar with those exact medications but I would use the one for internal parasites first if isolating the fish does not improve her disposition.

Hope this helps.

Is it OK to treat the whole tank with meds even if only one is sick? I am new to the hobby and I don't have a hospital tank... Btw this morning all the guppies are fine and playful, including the sick one, she swims and schools with the others, but doesn't eat.

Anyway, the meds will arrive today at some point. I think it should work if she has an internal parasite...
This is a video about the esha-ndx, if it's internal parasites it should work...

 

[MRK17]

Actually I just found out that esha ndx contains levamisole (same as fritz expel p), which can't be sold in Italy without a prescription from a vet. But I bought from the Netherlands so I should get it without issues and my order has already been shipped :^)

 

[Andy Sager]

Depending on the medicine, some can be used safely in the main tank while others will stress or depress the biological filter bed so I can't give you a blanket Yes or No to your question. In this case, since you are using something for internal parasites versus an antibiotic, I would say yes you can treat the whole tank but keep in mind that when medicating fish, you really want to use as small a container as possible to reduce costs on the medicine. Sadly, many Guppies now carry intestinal worms so it's probably not a bad idea to treat them all to help clean out all the fish. Just make sure you follow the directions for repeat dosing as I believe Levamisol does not kill the eggs from the worms. In the future, you should have a container/ tank to use as a hospital tank so that you can treat fish in it or set up a quarantine tank so that all new fish go through a quarantine period to make sure they are not bringing in any " nasties" with them from wherever they are coming from.

 

[MRK17]

I watched a bunch of videos on how to use esha ndx, and indeed it seems like you need to do two treatments, because new worms will hatch and they need to be killed as well. The medicine is being delivered today.
Thanks for your help!

 

[MRK17]

Hello! Yesterday I treated the whole tank with eSHa NDX, I followed the instructions and did not feed my guppy for 24 hours. Then siphoned the bottom and did a big water change. Now I'm filtering with activated carbon to remove the medication.

As soon as I introduced 70 drops of NDX (the instructions said to get 1 drop of NDX per liter of water, and my tank is 70l), all of the bladder snails I had fainted and dropped to the bottom. 3 hours later I checked out the situation, most snails snapped out of it and were moving arond as usual. All my gups were fine and I noticed the sickly one pooping out some white poop. I fed them nothing so I think she expelled some of the worms.

Anyway, after that I went to bed, next day (today) I did not feed them, as instructed, and waited for the 24 hours to pass. Then I fed them a small amount of food and they all ate, including the sickly one! I noticed a lot of spitting out food though from all of them, maybe that's normal too after treatment? The instructions for NDX say to feed lightly for a few days and slowly go back to the usual feeding amount. I saw some of them poop out normal poops, but not the sickly one, even though I'm pretty sure she ate at least a little bit of food, and with more energy than before. When all the food was either gone or sunk to the bottom, I did a 50% water change as instructed, and added chemical filtration including activated carbon.

So yeah, what do you think? Is this normal for levamisole treatment? I really hope this cured whatever the sickly one had and prevented all the other 5 to getting it too.

 

[Andy Sager]

Follow the directions as per the package regarding feeding and water changes as not all meds are sold in the same strengths so what might be " normal" for some brands may be better/worse than other brands.