Fancy Guppy Deaths

[Nutter]

My eldest set up his own 20 gallon tank a few months ago. Now that he has a part time job, a new tank was high on his priority list. He stocked it with 6 Neon Tetras & 4 male Guppies. Unfortunately he is having trouble keeping the fancy guppies he likes alive for more than a few weeks. They are fine for the first few weeks & then one by one they end up sitting on the substrate & not coming up for food. A day or two later they will die. There are no visible injuries or parasites & there is no rapid breathing. He replaces the ones that die on him.

If this was anyone else I would say that it is a water quality issue, probably ammonia. However I assisted him with the fishless cycle & we test the water together right before he does his weekly water change. The results are always the same, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10, PH 7.6 & temp is 77f. Tap water has the same parameters (without the nitrate) & he heats it to temp before water changes. On top of that, the 6 Neon Tetras that share the tank with the 4 Guppies are doing just fine.

Anyone got any ideas? I'm stumped.

 

[jetajockey]

sure there isn't any bullying going on? males tend to stress on each other even if there isn't any signs of fin nipping, hence the need for multiple females to distract them.

 

[Kunsthure]

Are they all from the same store? Maybe the store just has a weak batch or something.

-Lisa

 

[Nutter]

99.9% certain there's no bullying tactics going on. Usually same sex Guppy tanks are fine anyway IME. Even when there isn't many fish to share the agro around & no the Neons are not nipping at them.

The Guppys are from two different stores but they may well have come from the same supplier. Perth is really only served by 3 major suppliers & a handfull of backyard breeders. This is pretty much what I came up with myself as I havn't had much luck getting quality stock of any fish for the last 6 months or so but I thought it would be good to run it past a few other people just in case I'm missing something.

 

[Tigerfishy]

My guppies do the same, they never seem to last for very long... Maybe the guppies in my area are the same, my water is just like yours and every tank mate is fine too. I have just put it down to my local stock before.

 

[Nutter]

Guppies are a bit weird like that. I never used to be able to keep them for more than a few months when I lived in a different part of the state but I used to have no problems with them at this house. I even had half a dozen or so tanks dedicated to nothing but breeding & raising them. I used to raise the fry as food for my predators or for store credit at one of my LFS. There has been a fair amount of work on the Perth water supply over the last few months so maybe the water has changed in some way that I don't measure & it's no good for the Guppies anymore. I think the young bloke has just about had enough of the Guppies dying on him & wants to try for something else. Pretty sure he's got Glowlight Tetras in mind.

 

[Jeffcameron]

Hi Nutter, I've got no suggestions for you but wanted to say I've experienced something very similar over last few weeks. I set up a tank for my girlfriend and thought I'd got everything perfect (had filter for her aquarium in my 85G for 4 weeks, fully cycled, water parameters perfect). I added two Guppies from Totally Tanked in Maddington then my girlfriend selected two more from Gosnells Tropical Fish and Aquariums. They seemed fine for about a week then one by one they started doing the same thing as you mentioned. They would lie on the bottom and go limp, then flail a bit if you disturbed water or did a water change then go limp on the bottom again. The last one died two days ago.

So maybe there is something going on with water that Guppies don't like or just really bad batches of Guppies out at the moment. Just wanted to let you know cause I'm in Perth too.

 

[dvc_r]

There is a disease that guppies can get. The LFS called it "Guppy Disease" but after researching it, that's not what it's called. I can't find the actual name but all the symptoms are the same (actually there are no symptoms) they just start to die off. The cause is from overstocking. For this reason my LFS will only take 20 guppies at a time when I bring them in for credit. Fortunately my guppies sell quick so I can go back a week later to drop off more if I have to.

I'm not saying overstocking form your tank but possibly from the LFS or even the fish farm.