I would look up what meds you can get in australia. Especially antibiotic, as they make be necessary from time to time. Try to get some oxytetracycline, its cheap, its very good, very broad spectrum, and dosent ever go bad because its synthetic.
You could look into a UV stearilizer.
You could also raise your guppies in Brackish water, to reduce the amount of diseases and parasites in the water. Camallanus worms for example, are a common gut parasite, and can wipe out several tanks, but they cannot survive in brackish or saltwater.
Guppies can do fine in brackish, just make sure to always let it dissolve for half an hour to an hour first in the bucket. There are cheap hydrometers avaliable online or at marine fish stores. Look for something like this.
http://blog.aquanerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Hydrometer.jpg
Hi Matt, thanks again, great ideas. I've ordered a couple of fish health books, as I'm a bit of researcher - I like to read up on things
Also, I will be doing what you've suggested, I.e keep the water brackish. I had reduced the amount of salt (as it was very high while I was trying to treat the fish). And at the time, nitrites were rally high, I don't know what caused this, either high salt or meds. But now that I've reduced the salt to "normal" levels and taken out meds, and added a Toxivec dose to the Tank earlier in the week.. I had not touched the tank for 5 days.. And tested last night after doing what I thought would be a required water changes given the last lot of levels in the tank only to find:
Ammonia and nitrites were 0.0 and nitrate was low at 2.0-3.0 ..So wow. Not sure how that happened given I had such a hard time trying to keep nitrite down while the tank was in treatment mode. But did have a nitra-zorb bag in the tank too.. Maybe it all helped.
So, still have a living Endler in the tank, although, given how he seemed to be a fin nipper, not sure I want to keep him. But I'll keep him while I make sure the Tank is ok for the next few weeks.
In the mean time, my other established tank has a fry in it, which has been growing and looking very healthy and happy in his space. I put a very small dose of salt in a water top up yesterday, and he's adjusted ok. As you say, letting salt dissolve before adding is key.
A UV steriliser sound expensive, but I'll look into it. But I definitely see the value of a hydrometer. Thanks also for the tip about antibiotics. I'm not sure if we can get antibiotics over the counter here, but I might head to the fish shop and see what the story is .
Matt you're advice is fantastic, I really appreciate it . Thank you. Will keep you posted
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