Guppy tail split

Hello,
Recently I noticed one of my guppy's tail split into 3 sections. I also noticed very minimal tail breaking on another guppy which is barely noticable. Does anyone know the cause of that?

I have 5 male guppies, 1 male dwarf gourami, and some dwarf shrimps in my 10.
I do 30% water change every now and then. I use API stress coat.
PH:7.6 (although yesterday I started adding some indian almond leaf)
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0.25ppm

Sorry I haven't took any pictures, but I drew an image of how it looked.

 

I have zero experience with guppies but is sounds like nip damage. I have had gouramis and they can be nippy. Clean water and they will more than likely correct themselves pretty quick.

 

How did you measure 0.25 ppm nitrate?
I see this from time to time with my guppies. Could be injury could be genetics.
I used to have one in particular that would get a tear drop shaped hole in the middle of its tail fin. Always the same spot and once it got to a certain size would go away. Never found out why.
Clean water.

 

I had some male guppies and rehomed them cause I got tired of the constant bullying.

 

It definitely has nothing to do with clean water, because it happened after I did a 30% water change. The tank is fairly new, had it for about 2 months and did a couple of water changes. About the 0.25ppm I'm using the master kit and the colour shown is like 0 (yellow), but there's no way any aquarium can have exactly 0 was just a guess.

 

Ahh gotcha. A heavily planted tank can fully deplete nitrate in a sort of cycle of its own. Any deaths?

 

This happened to a male guppy of mine very suddenly, and I still don't know why. One day I saw he was laying down, but no one was bothering him and his fin looked fine. An hour later he had gotten up but a big middle chunck of his fin had come clean off, down to the quick.

He made a full recovery and his fin partially grew back, but it was strange. This happens a lot, apparently, but fin nipping or water parameters wasn't the case here. Possibly genetics, or I reckon the unnaturally big fins are hindering them and weird things are gonna happen.

Sorry for the bad quality of pic #2, my qt tank is so old it has perma-biofilm on the front glass.

 

There is certainly a lot about genetics we don’t understand

 

Something similar has happened to one of my guppies. His tail has split in multiple sections and has also now got a red spot/mark on it? Picture attached. I thought maybe it was fin rot but none of my other fish have it, I have added a fin rot treatment to the water and also he’s been like this for about 3-4 months as it’s been gradual. Any ideas?

 

Mine ended up dying week later.
My aquarium is heavily planted with anubias, java fern, moss, ludwigia, amazon frogbit.
I’m pretty new to guppies keeping so I have no idea what’s causing it. Perhaps it’s because I don’t do drip accumulation during water change? I do make sure the temperatures are the same.

 

I think nipping is a big problem. I don't know about others, but guppies are NOT peaceful to each other. Especially if you keep gender only tanks. My fancy guppies tail split because my endler nipped at it, but it grew back. As long as your parameters are fine it should grow back. If the split tail doesn't grow back, it could be caused by stress. For example, other guppies may be harassing it, or the gourami could be causing the issue. The guppy fighting is normal, but it can get really tiring and stressful sometimes.

 

It definitely has nothing to do with clean water, because it happened after I did a 30% water change. The tank is fairly new, had it for about 2 months and did a couple of water changes. About the 0.25ppm I'm using the master kit and the colour shown is like 0 (yellow), but there's no way any aquarium can have exactly 0 was just a guess.

Don't be so sure it's absolutely impossible for water parameters to be an issue. Usually split tails in guppies are because of insufficient water changes. A 30% water change "once in a while" isn't frequent enough. If you've had it for two months and have only done two water changes, that's not nearly enough, and that's your likely problem, especially since your other guppies are starting to show problems.

Most people do a water change a minimum of once per week, more often if you feed heavily. I feed for growth, and I do one 50% water change and one 25% water change about every five days. Many top guppy breeders do water changes every day. Once a month won't keep your guppies healthy.

I'm not sure what you feed, but if you hatch live baby brine shrimp it helps to drop a half tab of Vitamin B complex into the hatching solution. That will help with split tails also.

 

I’m doing a water change once every weekend. I’m feeding only flake food though and sometimes they steal the shrimp pellets I give to the shrimps, occasionally give them vegetables like blanched cucumber cut into tiny pieces (since my shrimps love it) I do remove them after an hour. I also noticed an increase in algae on the sides of the glass.. and I often see the guppies chasing each other’s tails. I’m not breeding and I hear that they breed like mad so I only kept only males. I don’t know what I can do to make them happier. Are tetras more peaceful with each other than guppies?

 

To be honest, excessive algae is also a sign of not enough water changes.

I'm not familiar with a test kit that gives a .25 reading for nitrates, but with a nitrate reading that low, it indicates the tank is not cycled. The only way that low a reading can happen with a healthy tank is if the tank is heavily planted and the plants are consuming the nitrates. If it's heavily planted, the algae indicates there's an excess of nutrients.

I always get aggressive with water changes whenever I have a problem. Even it it doesn't cure the exact illness, frequent water changes will help your fish recover.

On your API kit, do you shake the Bottle #2 nitrate for 30 seconds before adding to the test tube, then shake the tube for 60 seconds, wait for five minutes then read?