miraloma

I've torn by my fish situation here. I need some advice!

I have 3 tanks, isn't it crazy how you start with 1 and somehow end up with 3? A 6.6g tank that's just over 1 month old. A 10g tank that's about 4 weeks old and a 28g that's only 5 days old. My original plan was to have the 28g for my guppies and platys. The 10g would be my shrimp tank with live plants and the 6.6g would be my show tank ('cause it's really pretty but too small to keep enough fish that I want). Well, what I didn't count on was platy fry, aggressive guppies and sick guppies.

I started out with 2 guppies and 2 platys. The guppies were very aggressive toward the platys. Some people suggested that I should have some female guppies to keep the boys in line. That was the reason I bought the 28g so I could have lady guppies. On the same night that I brought home the female guppies, my platy, unbeknownst to me was pregnant when I bought her from the store a month ago, gave birth to fry in the 10g. In a panic to save the fry, I tossed all of the adult fish in the 28g even though it wasn't ready for 10 fish. The 2 male guppies were still chasing after the 2 platys even though there were 6 fine lady guppies to distract them. So I moved the platys to the 6.6g to have some privacy and peace & quiet. Last night, I noticed that 2 of the new guppies had fin rot. I isolated them to a breeder box so they wouldn't be picked on by their tank mates.

My conflict is this: where should I keep the sick guppies? I prefer them not be in the 28g to infect other guppies. I also don't want to have to treat the whole tank with medicine. If I were to put them in the 6.6g, I'd have to move the platys back into the 28g where the guppies would chase them to no end. If I were to put them in the 10g, I would have to move my fry, which could be difficult. The 10g has sand, gravel, live plants and ornaments. I don't think it'd be wise to treat that tank with medicine either. I really don't want to go get another tank 'cause I'm running out of space and it wouldn't be cycled either. The 3 tanks that I have aren't even fully cycled yet. I can't bring myself up to get yet another tank.

What should I do?!

susitna-flower

Do you have a Master test kit? I can tell by your post that you understand about the cycle, but just exactly where in the cycle are your different tanks?

Did the guppies have fin rot when you brought them home?

Many times water paramaters that are not ideal can cause the fin rot, and if you perform many small changes -25 to 50 %, over a weeks time the fin rot will heal itself. That is the first thing I would try before you medicate. Along with this if you feed a high protein feeding at least once a day, it will help regrow what has been damaged.

If this doesn't work, you may end up having to use one of the smaller tanks and medicate, I like Maracyn-Two.

Best of Luck, and Merry Christmas

armadillo

I had no idea that high protein food could stimulate re-growth. Thanks for a new interesting fact!

COBettaCouple

So, if I follow correctly - the 2 gups with finrot are in the 28g and their only tank mates are 6 other gups?

What type of fin rot is it? Jagged and torn or more like chunks fell off and more straight lined? If you have fungal fin rot, then you'll be "in luck" with being able to treat them with an organic herbal product called "Rid-Fungus" - safe even for fry so not a problem for the other fish in the tank with the guppies that have fin rot. If it's bacterial, then Triple Sulfa would be the med to use. It's an antibiotic, but at least it doesn't harm the good bacteria and is not as harsh on the other fish.

Do you have VitaChem or Fish Protector? Those are both super at helping fins regrow.

miraloma

I have a master test kit, but haven't had time to test out the water. Will do as soon as I can. I don't think the guppies had fin rot when I brought them home 'cause I didn't see that the first night, however I wasn't looking for it either.

One question about water change. From what I've read, ICH often is triggered by a drop in temperature. When I do a water change, the new water is often pretty cold. Changing 25%-50% water surely will drop the water temp by a lot. Wouldn't that trigger an outbreak of Ich if it's already suspected to be present?

Yes, the 2 guppies with fin rots are in the same tank that has only guppies. Unfortunately, I lost 3 (out of 6 that I bought 3 days ago) guppies yesterday. One of the fin rot guppy and 2 that seemed totally fine, all of a sudden just lost it. It was a sad day for me. The remaining guppy with fin rot has jagged tail, with some discoloring at the edges. She seems very active and energetic. However, she likes to flash. I also noticed my 2 male guppies flashing, which they've never done before. I'll have to research on the difference between fungal and bacterial fin rot.

I couldn't find VitaChem at my LFS. I got 2 medications, one for Ich and one for Fin Rot. Haven't used either one yet.

I have 2 fry in the main tank, which I had originally thought were platy fry 'cause I had a platy dropping fry the same night. Upon further inspection, now that they are swimming out in the open more, I don't think they are platys. My platy fry are orange, just like their mother a sunset wag platy, but these ones are more brown-ish and longer/slimmer in length. I think one of the lady guppies I got from the store came bearing gifts. Should I move the guppy fry to the same tank as the platy fry or should I leave them be? I'm tempted to move them just in case I need to medicate the 28g tank. I'm hesitating because the fry tank doesn't have a heater right now (being shipped right now). I worry about fry casualty if I move them from a nice 80F to about 65F.

jsalemi

Do you have any way to warm the water before you put it in the tank?

miraloma

Warming the water before putting it into the tank seems difficult when I do a water change. I've read that it's not good to use hot water from the tap. I'm not sure I'd boil it on the stove either. I wonder how most people do it...

jsalemi

Not sure what's wrong with hot water from the tap -- just let it run a few minutes before you put it in the container/Python/whatever. I use a digital cooking thermometer to test the water temperature before it goes in the tank, and I'm able to keep it within a degree of the water already in the tank.

miraloma

My water quality reading:
6.6G - NH3 0.25-0.5 PPM; NO2 1-2 ppm; NO3 5-10 ppm; pH 7.5
10G - NH3 <0.25 ppm; NO2 1 ppm; NO3 <5 ppm; pH 7.5
28G - NH3 0.5 ppm; NO2 0.5 ppm; NO3 0; pH 7.3

0morrokh

When they say it's bad to use hot tap water it's because there tends to be more dissolved stuff in hot water that could potentially be bad for fish (I'm blanking on what exactly it is). However the temp of tank water is not really that hot, just warm, so I don't think it's too big of a deal. I always take water straight from the tap at the temp of my tanks.

None of your tanks are cycled since there is ammonia and nitrite. These toxins can only contribute to the disease problem so watch them carefully to make sure they don't get too high.

miraloma

I knew my tanks weren't completely cycled, just didn't know how far off till now. What's too high? I did a water change 3 nights ago. How often or reaching what reading should I be changing the water?

jsalemi

Any ammonia or nitrites isn't good -- until they're down to 0, you should be doing daily water changes of at least 25%

miraloma

Isn't daily water change going to slow down my cycle significantly? I've had the 10g for about a month and the 6.6g for probably 6 weeks now. The cycle's taking much longer than I anticipated...

I've moved all the fry into a breeder box, so I can move the guppies from the 28g to the 10g. That seems like a good plan except for the fact that my 10g doesn't have a heater. Or, I could move the platys, which are hardier, to the 10g and put all the guppies in the 6.6g.

So I guess my real question is: with my 3 not cycled tanks based on the water reading, how/where should I keep my fish so to minimize stress?

jsalemi

Daily water changes won't slow the cycle enough to offset the damage the high ammonia and nitrites will do the fish. Cutting the amount of both in the tank will give the bacteria a better chance to catch up and multiply enough to take care of what's left.

You can also try adding some of the Seachem Stability -- it's the only 'bacterial' product I've found that actually seems to work in a tank with fish (Bio-Spira is really better for fishless cycling). You can also add some Prime or AmQual Plus to the tank to reduce the ammonia and nitrites to lessen the stress on the fish.

0morrokh

It isn't unusual for cycling with fish to take up to two months because you have to keep the ammonia levels low or it'll poison your fish. If you don't have any suitable cycled tanks then just leave all the fish where they are but do very frequent water changes.

COBettaCouple

Are you experiencing ich symptoms? The best way to change water temp on them is to float them in the new tank in a container of water from the old tank and slowly add water from the new tank to acclimate them.

It sounds like an anti-fungal med would be in order and I would recommend the Rid-Fungus. What symptoms are the guppies showing currently? How many do you have now? Do you have any pictures to post? What are their gills looking like?

miraloma

I don't see any white spots on the fish. The symptoms are that 1 guppy has finrot and almost all of them flash. I have 5 guppies right now, 3 of which are new. I'll try to take pictures but they are extremely active. It's difficult for me to even see if the other ones have finrot. I have serious doubts about any pictures coming out clear. I'll see if video works better.

Am I understanding you correctly that I should fish them out into a container with old tank water while doing a water change? The steps would be: put them in a separate tank with old water, put new water in the tank, then acclimate them back into the tank. Would taking them out into a holding tank cause more or less stress than the water temperature change?

PS: 1 fry (suspected to be guppy rather than platy) died this morning. What's the typical fry survival rate? Is it reasonable to expect some of them not make it when they are in the breeder box? or perhaps this is only the fall out of my tank not being cycled?

PPS: This is the clearest picture I can get of the guppy that has finrot. You can see that the tail is ragged.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=miralomasf has 3 examples of my flashing guppies.

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0morrokh

Sorry you lost a fry. Could've been a ton of different things, don't kill yourself trying to figure out why he died.

You shouldn't have to remove the fish when you do a water change. All you have to do is suck out some of the water with a siphon and then pour in new water of the same temp.

I've gotta say these videos are soo helpful. They've definately got some kind of parasite. If there's no signs of ich or velvet, and you can't see anything hanging on them, then I'd suspect gill flukes. They'll need to be treated with an anti-parasite med, and salt can help too.

miraloma

I have added salt to the water during water changes, not sure if enough or not. I kind of just estimated. I'll get some gill fluke medicine soon. Thanks for the tip!

0morrokh

Best not to estimate with salt. It's easy for it to build up in tanks, or to get too low, if you don't measure it carefully.

To be honest I'm not sure if the amount of salt that would be acceptable to put into the main tank would have any effect on parasites. I normally use salt in salt baths (30 minute dips in a gal or two of water with 2.5 Tbsp of salt per gal). Sorry I wasn't more specific earlier. Don't worry about salt in the tank though, it won't hurt livebearers and might help them with their disease, I'm just not sure what concentration actually kills parasites. You don't want much in the tank though since they are freshwater fish.

COBettaCouple

The livebearer survival rate varies from almost none to almost all, but on average I think 60% survive into the adolescent stage. I agree that internal parasites seem to be at work there. For me too, it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the vids of the gups flashing. Parasite Clear is probably the best thing to treat the tank with, or you can try feeding Medicated food for internal parasites (made by Jungle & found at Petsmart) to the affected fish.

miraloma

The guppy with fin rot is getting worse. More of her tail on th elower half is gone with just the tail spines. She's developed a white patch on her body, behind the head, above the gills on one side. She's sometimes laying on gravel breathing heavily, sometimes shimmying, sometimes swimming just below the water surface stationary, and sometimes aimlessly swimming around. I don't think she's going to last through the night. The rest of my guppies are still flashing but no other signs. I still can't be 100% sure what they have. I know it's not Ich and doesn't look like velvet. I don't see any thing hanging off so probably not gill fluke or other external parasite. It could be either fungus, bacteria or parasite. I just can't be sure which or maybe even more than one!

I'm really kicking myself for not having a hospital tank ready. I was lucky with my first 2 purchases of fish, no disease ever broke out even though I bought them to cycle my tanks. I became careless about quarantine. This last batch of fish really hit me hard. I might lose all my guppies.

COBettaCouple

I'd definitely 2nd my earlier advice on an anti-fungal product such as Rid-Fungus. That sounds like fungal fin rot and body fungus. Parasites are possible, given the flashing and shimmying. There is a product for shimmies.. I think it's called Molly Brite.

miraloma

Thanks, COBetteCouple. I've ordered Rid-Fungus online but I don't know if it's going to get here before the fish perish. The possible good news is that I've been watching my guppies for the last 30 minutes and I didn't see much flashing at all. Two of them didn't flash at all and the other 2 only flashed once very briefly. It was more like running into the gravel once, rather than repeated scratching, which was what they used to do as of this afternoon. The one with the fin rot is resting a lot on the gravel. She occasionally swims around and tries to get some company/sympathy from the other guppies but no one pays much attention to her.

COBettaCouple

Who did you order from? DFS usually is pretty fast and Pet Mountain does good as well. I have seen it at Petco, but quite a bit more .

Is the shimmying symptom gone now? Do you have any meth. blue or fish protector?

miraloma

I ordered my stuff mainly from PetSmart and PetCo. Largely 'cause I can go to the store and return stuff if necessary. They also have free shipping on orders $50 or more, most of the time. I don't like to pay shipping.

One more fish died last night. Now I'm down to 3 guppies, only 1 of them was from the LFS last week. This morning, I saw no diseased symptoms at all, after watching them for about 10 minutes. I think whatever disease out break I had, went away with the fish that were infected. That's my hope anyway.

I did a water change this morning and the water parameters are:
6.6G NH3: 0.25-0.5 ppm; NO2 1.0 ppm; NO3 10 ppm; pH 7.2
10G NH3: <0.25 ppm; NO2 <0.25 ppm; NO3 <5 ppm; pH 7.2
28G NH3: 0.25-0.5 ppm; NO2 0.5 ppm; NO3 <5 ppm; pH 7

I suppose there's no point measuring NO3 if my NH3 and NO2 are not 0.

Question: after an out break like this, is there a proper procedure to "sterilize" the tank and the water? Is it necessary? I never positively identified the disease, thus no medication was used.

COBettaCouple

I hope the disease outbreak is over too. I'm not sure what others would recommend, but if that were my tank, I think that I would clean the substrata good, then change out as much water as possible. You could move the fish to a loosely covered container, then acclimate them to the water when the tank was ready. Then see how they look in 3 weeks.

miraloma

I'd definitely do that if my tank were already cycled, COBettaCouple. I'm concerned that I'd have to start all over again with the cycle, that may or may not be more stressful for the fish. My current thinking is that I wait a few more days to make sure the survivors are ok then I'd move them to my 10G, which is more ready than the 28G. The 10G currently has my platy fry, that's why I don't want to move them just yet so I don't wipe out the entire population. After a successful transfer of the guppies, then I could clean out the 28G to start over again. You mentioned cleaning the substrate, how about the filters? I'm assuming everything else in the aquarium would need to be cleaned as well, decoration, heater, air stone, etc.

COBettaCouple

Since they were in a tank with a disease outbreak, I'd view them as "in quarantine" and recommend waiting 3 weeks before bringing them into contact with other fish. If they show no symptoms in that time, then they should be safe.

If you want to totally sterilize that tank when it's empty of fish, then I'd empty the water, put the tank in a tub and rinse with hot water then dry everything several times, discarding anything 'disposable' like filter bags.

If you just want to clean the tank, then I would put the substrata and filter sponges in a container with enough clean treated tap water to keep it wet and then clean everything else good.

I was thinking about cleaning the substrata however you usually do in my earlier post.

miraloma

Last new guppy died today. Now I'm back to the 2 male guppies that have been with me for about 6 weeks. I hope they survive this last fish epidemic.