1gamma45

As easy as guppies may be they still are easy to kill too.

Do you know your tanks stats IE Ph Temp Ammo Nitrite Nitrate? Was this a new tank? Is it cycled? Did you rinse your stones and fitler b4 putting it in the tank? Were they petsmart or petco fish?

To keep a happy guppy tank you want this.

Ph 6.8-7.8
Temp 70-80
Ammo 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10-40

2 females for every 1 male

The petsmart petco thing is a personal pet haha pev of mine. I have had my tanks I have 3 currently a male a female and a birth tanks all cycled. A week ago I bought 4 fish at petco against my better judgment but they were so cooll looking i had to have them. took them home put them in a container added tank water to thier bag water 1 cup at a time for 3 hrs then added them to the tank after 1 week I have 1 left alive the first 2 died within a day the 3rd 2 nites ago. Not a happy camper and I am kicking myself for not listening to myself. Atleast they have a 15 day return on all fish.


Also if you do get the tank set up and going and you get guppies that stay alive you will quickly find that having males with females you WILL have babies. Understand they can have 10-100 in 1 drop they store enough sperm to drop every month for 5-6 months without mating. Just something to keep in mind. I started with 1 male 1 female I now have 6 males in 1 tank 2 females in another tank with 57 fry 1 month old and 20 more fry 2 weeks old in my birth tank. And the mom that droped the 57 is due any day again.

Good luck and I hope you are able to get alot of joy out of your guppies.

NewBKaeK

Er... Nitrate should ideally be 0 at all times. =\

1gamma45

This is untrue

Nitrate is good for fish at lvls 10-40

Nitrite is bad for fish at anything over 0

Nitrate is a helpfull bact. that you want in your fish tank. If you would like I can link you any # of studies that show this. Here is one of many about the cycle and benafit of having Nitrates

http://www.guppies.com/forums/showth...vice-9975.html

NewBKaeK

Nitrate isn't a bacteria. It's the chemical compound NO3
Nitrates are beneficial to plants and algae, which may in turn be beneficial to fish. But it is most definitely not good for fish.

True, at low levels it is not harmful to fish, but keeping the nitrates at 0 will most definitely put less stress on fish.

Yes the article is about the cycle and nitrifying bacterium, but nowhere does it state that Nitrates are good for fish.

Calab

What makes you say that? What are the actual water test readings?

Calab

Not even close... A 2.5 gallon tank is good for one guppy... Two if you do water changes often.
...and what are yout current water tests showing now?
Guppies are greedy little fish... They'll pick the food right off your fingers if you leave them in the tank. They aren't shy at all. Unless you are *REAAAAALLY* overfeeding them, they should all hustle to be the first to get the food right away!

Calab

Uhm... if you are keeping your nitrAtes at zero constantly, I would suspect that your cycle is having issues.

A working tank will always have nitrates simply because they are the result of the processing of ammonia and nitrItes.

In a perfect world, zero nitrAtes would be best, but in reality it's not a realistic goal.

InvisiblePlaymate

It is heartbreaking to bring fish home and have them die within hours or days. I've raised and bred fancy guppies for many years and have found them to be very hardy and easy-to-keep fish so long as the water is not too "raw" for them.
After a hiatus when my husband and I traveled a lot, I recently set up tanks and jumped back into the guppy hobby with blue Moscow fry I mail-ordered from a prize-winning breeder. The shipper was supposed to wait until Aug. to send my fish, but he jumped the gun and sent them immediately. I made a rush trip to the store and was up until 2 in the morning setting up a 10 gal. tank. I used about 1/4 water I robbed from an established tank and added a product called Bio-Life to start the nitrogen cycle, plus a lot of live plants and, of course, a water conditioner.
Next morning about 10:30, my fry were delivered and I spent a couple of hours floating bags and slowly (1 c. at a time) replacing the water with water from my new tank. The happy ending to this story is that my new babies were eating within a few minutes and are still doing great and visibly growing after a couple of weeks.
Temp is about 76, and I use a gentle filter with cartridges, an regular aquarium hood with light maybe 10 hours a day. Only other critters in the tank are a large snail and a small Cory catfish. I live in nw Ohio, and we have naturally hard water on the alkaline side. Add a little aquarium (not table) salt to the water, too, for guppies.
Better luck next time!

russ757

guys i ahve had this hapen it is Ich modifyded into the guppiesDNA so one of their parents might have had Ich then given birth and infected your fish try a new pet store

Laelanna

I have 4 guppies, 1 male and 3 females. They have been in my tank a week and a half now and all the females are about to pop! Don't know what I'm going to do with that many babies. I have a smaller tank set up but I have to get a net to catch the females to put them in the other tank. Anyway, My tank (hubby's really) is probably nearing the end of the cycling and we have had no problems with the guppies at all. I don't know the exacts of the tank stats, but the ph is around 7.4 I think, very hard water, ammonia I want to say has gone down to zero but nitrites are still running low. They have gone through major tank changes as well and have had no problems. My hubby has completely rearranged the tank twice in the last 2 days due to getting in his live plants and driftwood..

The only thing I could say really is it sounds like you added the fish too soon or that your lfs is getting in sick fish.