Random guppy mass death???

[OuchWorm]

Hey! I just woke up to all of my guppies dead in the water - does anyone have any thoughts on why they died?
I originally was given four wildtype guppies as a gift, which I DIY'd a tank for. Fish-in cycle, daily water changes of about 10%. One of them died, but the others were fine for a long time. Shrimp in their tank also were fine, never saw any dead.
I finally move and set up a nice 5 gallon tank for the surviving three, much larger than their original tank. Used the original seeded sponge filter with two sponges and everything, thought we were good. Fish seem fine for a little while - I try putting a land plant in there, rinsed the roots as well as I could. The tank is full of a few dirt particles, but the fish seem fine. Light blue shrimplets were added to the tank and they also seem fine.
I buy one more guppy from the store just before the plants, and add him to a quarantine tank for three days - seems perfectly fine. I add him to the tank and he's also fine.
Then the ammonia spikes (because of the fourth fish? or the dirt from the plant that I added?)
The fancy guppy from the store dies a little later. I do water changes to keep the ammonia down, I figure it cant be too bad since none of the shrimp were dead. 0 Nitrite, 50 ammonia, around 20 or 30 nitrates.
Today I wake up and two of the wild guppies are dead. The tank is completely cloudy.
Panic, do a huge ~60-70% water change. The last guppy dies a few hours later with part of his upper lip gone/eaten away.
Now it is just shrimp in the tank, and I'm really sad. I want to eventually get another fish (gobies?) or more guppies, but I don't know why all of them died. Why the water went extremely cloudy overnight.
I took the dead fish out, changed the water today, and removed the plant that I thought might have been leeching ammonia, but I'm worried the tank might still be infectuous. What should I do? The shrimp all look fine.

 

[HupGupp]

It would help if you were specific about the timeline on all these events.

If your shrimp are fine, it might have just been unhealthy fish though. I'm assuming the shrimp are neocaridina - I find they are far more delicate than guppies.

 

[BlueRaccoon]

Hey! I just woke up to all of my guppies dead in the water - does anyone have any thoughts on why they died?
I originally was given four wildtype guppies as a gift, which I DIY'd a tank for. Fish-in cycle, daily water changes of about 10%. One of them died, but the others were fine for a long time. Shrimp in their tank also were fine, never saw any dead.
I finally move and set up a nice 5 gallon tank for the surviving three, much larger than their original tank. Used the original seeded sponge filter with two sponges and everything, thought we were good. Fish seem fine for a little while - I try putting a land plant in there, rinsed the roots as well as I could. The tank is full of a few dirt particles, but the fish seem fine. Light blue shrimplets were added to the tank and they also seem fine.
I buy one more guppy from the store just before the plants, and add him to a quarantine tank for three days - seems perfectly fine. I add him to the tank and he's also fine.
Then the ammonia spikes (because of the fourth fish? or the dirt from the plant that I added?)
The fancy guppy from the store dies a little later. I do water changes to keep the ammonia down, I figure it cant be too bad since none of the shrimp were dead. 0 Nitrite, 50 ammonia, around 20 or 30 nitrates.
Today I wake up and two of the wild guppies are dead. The tank is completely cloudy.
Panic, do a huge ~60-70% water change. The last guppy dies a few hours later with part of his upper lip gone/eaten away.
Now it is just shrimp in the tank, and I'm really sad. I want to eventually get another fish (gobies?) or more guppies, but I don't know why all of them died. Why the water went extremely cloudy overnight.
I took the dead fish out, changed the water today, and removed the plant that I thought might have been leeching ammonia, but I'm worried the tank might still be infectuous. What should I do? The shrimp all look fine.

It would be helpful to know the time between each event listed.

I'm assuming you mean 0.50ppm of ammonia? You shouldn't have let it there. That is a toxic level.

Sorry about your loss!

 

[emeraldking]

It would be helpful to know the time between each event listed.

This is key... So, Op, if you could give us a an update about that would be more helpful to help you out.

 

[OuchWorm]

As soon as I noticed the 0.5 ammonia I immediately did a water change.

The timeline:

1. Given 4 wildtype lab guppies as a gift, in-fish cycled DIY container tank.
2. One guppy dies, the rest are fine. Several months go by
3. Set up 5 gallon tank at home with seeded filter media , put 3 guppies into tank
4. 1 week later buy fourth fancy guppy from petstore
5. Quarantine guppy for 3 days, it seems fine. Swimming well and eating, nothing physically wrong
6. Put guppy into 5 gallon, everyone seems fine.
7. Buy plant from walmart, rinse roots as well as I can, put plant into fish tank
8. About a week later, fish are behaving weirdly. Some swimming by the filter listlessly, very active at night. Fancy guppy from petstore is glass-surfing and ignoring the others
9. High ammonia, do water change (~50%)
10. A few days later fancy guppy found dead. Do another water change (~20-30%)
11. Remaining guppies not looking good.
12. Wake up and 2 of them are dead, tank is incredibly cloudy. Do a huge water change (~50-70%)
13. Remaining guppy has no upper jaw and keeps chewing at nothing. He is dead by the evening of the same day

Throughout all of this, the blue neocardinia shrimp are fine. However, they are shrimplets from my own litter, so I think they might be hardy.
Do you think it was the plant from walmart since soil was still on the roots that I couldn't remove, or the petstore guppy poisoned the other three? Was 3 days not long enough to quarantine?

 

[OuchWorm]

Bumping this post!

 

[BlueRaccoon]

Bumping this post!

Sorry no one has responded. I had planned to, but I was hoping someone else would pipe up with something definitive.

What plant did you buy? An aquarium plant or something from the garden section?

No, unfortunately 3 days is not enough. It is recommended to quarantine for 2-4weeks. 3 days is just not long enough to show if the fish has a disease.

Was the ammonia normal before after the 4th fish?

Do you use tap water? If so, do you use declorinator?

 

[Fishfur]

What was the terrestrial plant that you added?

 

[OuchWorm]

Sorry no one has responded. I had planned to, but I was hoping someone else would pipe up with something definitive.

What plant did you buy? An aquarium plant or something from the garden section?

No, unfortunately 3 days is not enough. It is recommended to quarantine for 2-4weeks. 3 days is just not long enough to show if the fish has a disease.

Was the ammonia normal before after the 4th fish?

Do you use tap water? If so, do you use declorinator?

I bought a random plant from Walmart some terrestrial plant that I tried my hardest to scrape the dirt off, but dirt particles still went into the tank.

Ahh, I'll definitely make sure to quarantine animals for longer then especially if I ever buy from my LFS again (they don't have the best conditions)
I think the ammonia was above 0 before the 4th fish, since the tank was new and the cycled filter media wasn't enough to fully cycle the tank.

I do use tap water, but I declorinate with a shrimp water conditioner + prime

 

[BlueRaccoon]

I bought a random plant from Walmart some terrestrial plant that I tried my hardest to scrape the dirt off, but dirt particles still went into the tank.

Ahh, I'll definitely make sure to quarantine animals for longer then especially if I ever buy from my LFS again (they don't have the best conditions)
I think the ammonia was above 0 before the 4th fish, since the tank was new and the cycled filter media wasn't enough to fully cycle the tank.

I do use tap water, but I declorinate with a shrimp water conditioner + prime

Did you research that the plant you bought was safe for aquariums? I have read there are some toxic house plants, but I'm not sure how common they are in stores.

I mean if you had ammonia before you added it, it definitely wouldn't have helped. Ammonia can kill and you had a stressed fish (because it just moved) and ammonia. Not a great mix.

Sorry you're going through this. It's not fun losing pets. Good for you for trying to sort out the problem though.

 

[OuchWorm]

Did you research that the plant you bought was safe for aquariums? I have read there are some toxic house plants, but I'm not sure how common they are in stores.

I mean if you had ammonia before you added it, it definitely wouldn't have helped. Ammonia can kill and you had a stressed fish (because it just moved) and ammonia. Not a great mix.

Sorry you're going through this. It's not fun losing pets. Good for you for trying to sort out the problem though.

It definitely sucked losing the new guppy, but losing all 3 of my other guppies was awful I'm definitely not adding any more terrestrial plants to aquariums anymore, just in case... I'll also quarantine for much longer than 3 days in the future

 

[Fishfur]

I bought a random plant from Walmart some terrestrial plant that I tried my hardest to scrape the dirt off, but dirt particles still went into the tank.

Ahh, I'll definitely make sure to quarantine animals for longer then especially if I ever buy from my LFS again (they don't have the best conditions)
I think the ammonia was above 0 before the 4th fish, since the tank was new and the cycled filter media wasn't enough to fully cycle the tank.

I do use tap water, but I declorinate with a shrimp water conditioner + prime

An image of the plant might let us ID it. Are you using both Prime and another water conditioner together?

 

[GouramiGirl100]

Reading your post, it seems what killed the guppies is the high ammonia level that likely went unchecked for a few days. It could have been caused by either inadequate water changes or by the dirt from the terrestrial plant. The terrestrial plant you added is highly unlikely to be toxic to the fish in any other way besides carrying terrestrial fertilizer balls that likely leached ammonia into the water. I keep all types of terrestrial plants in my tanks with no issue, you just have to make sure they are well cleaned. I will usually water root the plants for a while before I add them to the tank.

 

[KadenSlone04]

It sounds like your store-bought guppy might have infected the rest of your guppies with columnaris. It causes mouth rot, fin rot, and skin rot. Your water went cloudy because your dead guppies released ammonia as they started to decay, and bacteria in the tank fed on that ammonia.

 

[Fishfur]

It sounds like your store-bought guppy might have infected the rest of your guppies with columnaris. It causes mouth rot, fin rot, and skin rot. Your water went cloudy because your dead guppies released ammonia as they started to decay, and bacteria in the tank fed on that ammonia.

Deceased fish would be broken down but it takes more than a day for that to happen and the heterotrophic bacteria that perform the breaking down produce ammonia. They can’t consume it.

The autotrophs that do consume ammonia are totally different species snd do not live freely in the water column so they can’t create cloudy water.

Vast numbers of heterotrophs are what create cloudy looking water and excess organic matter in the tank can cause a bacterial bloom which can seriously cloud the water.

As for an ammonia test that reads at .5ppm, it may surprise you but it is harmless. That may sound heretical but ammonia is rarely if ever a fatal problem in most tanks with average pH snd temperature

A shortish explanation is that ammonia has two forms - NH3 & NH4. NH3 is the dangerous toxic form but it does no harm until it reaches .6ppm. Dosage matters.

Ammonia’s two forms always exist together in water in a well understood ratio governed by pH and temperature.

Because they always exist together, a reading of .5ppm on any total ammonia test cannot possibly be pure NH3. But even if it was it still wouldn’t be able to kill fish because the dose isn’t quite high enough.

At pH between 8 & 7 at typical tank temperatures it’s pretty unusual for there to be enough NH3 to harm fish. In this pH range most of the ammonia is NH4.

If pH is under 7 there are only trace amounts of NH3. It’s virtually all NH4 if pH is acidic.

I think the new guppy may have had something, possibly an internal infection, which it passed to the resident fishhook but if ammonia was at .5 ppm it had nothing to do with the deaths.

It would be useful if you filled out the emergency template even now if you want to dig a little deeper into what might have gone wrong.