Female Guppys Dying

[hjdowning]

Just setting up a new aquarium, (first time) doing regular daily water changes etc.
When I set up the tank I started with 3 male and 3 female Guppys.The tank has been going for a week so far, and in that time all three female guppy have died, the males appear to be fine, happily swimming about, and don't look to be under any stress.

Just wondering if there is any known reason why just the females should die or is this just a coincidence?

Many Thanks
Henry

 

[GillesF]

You introduced the fish during the first set-up week of your aquarium? You should always wait at least 4 weeks for your tank to mature before adding any fish. During that period, bacteria will settle in and convert toxic products like NO2 into NO3 ...

 

[spyder]

What is the size of the tank and what filteration are you using.

Also is the tank planted?

Daily water changes? how much? Are you using any water treatment products?

Feeding how much, how often. Any uneaten food left in the tank?

A pic is a 1,000 words, but sounds like amonnia to me too.

 

[hjdowning]

GillesF: I wasn't aware I shouldn't add fish in the fist setup week, I followed advice from my local shop. This is probably why they are dying, the two males appear to be happy, then again i don't really know what a happy fish should look like.

spyder: The tank is 90l Juwel tank and filter. Tank has two pants, not sure of their names (give from a friend).

I have been changing a quarter of the water every evening, I have been using Seachem Prime to treat the water.
Not feeding at the moment, following advice from local shop.

 

[spyder]

Ok not too small then. A smaller tank and they would of poisoned themselves rather fast. I would of ran this for a week without any water changes then stocked 1 pair of guppies. Run that for 3-4 weeks before adding anything else. You need a source of amonnia for the bacteria to feed off in order to mature, or cycle your filter.

I would cut back on daily water changes and do around 30%, once or twice a week. Feed the fish but only lightly.

Finally, if you can throw in some fast growing, hardy stem plants that would help the process.

 

[ghostsword]

If you are in London I can get you some guppies, to get you started. 🙂

That tank is needing some wood, moss and ferns, it would look good.

 

[PeteA]

Hiya,

Sadly there are a lot of shops that aren't aware of something called "Fishless Cycling". As GillesF says basically it's a process where you build up beneficial bacteria which turns ammonia (which comes from fish waste, aka poo and wee) into nitrite and then nitrate. There are quite a few stores that won't sell you a tank and fish in a single purchase for this very reason.

I've got a few guppies as my other half loves them (real little characters) but they're actually quite weak little fish, very prone to disease. If you're planning on having males and females then you need twice as many females as you have males as the males *will* hassle the ladies for some guppy loving - this is possibly what happened as well as there being an ammonia problem. Also be prepared for a lot of young as guppies tend to reproduce as often as they possibly can! I only have males in my tank as I don't want any young uns!

Personally as you still have a couple of guppies left, I'd grab an ammonia and nitrite test kit. This will really be the only time you need a test kit as they're pretty unreliable 😉 Check your ammonia level every evening and then see if you need to do a water change. Ammonia is pretty toxic to fish, but you need enough in the tank to encourage the bacteria to grow but balance that against the fact that too much will kill your fish! I'd say once your test kit hits 1~2ppm ammonia do a 20% water change. Over time your ammonia will naturally lower as those bacteria grow. When it reliably hits 0ppm start to check your nitrites - use the same principal as the ammonia. Once that's reliably 0ppm you can put in a few more fish.

It could well take a few weeks to get things cycled and happy. Be patient, it's worth it in the end, use the time to read through the forum, work out what plants you'd like, find some nice bog wood...

pete

This is obviously my opinion and there are a lot of different methods of cycling - however I have always been told and read that you shouldn't put fish into a tank where there is ammonia or nitrite present.

 

[Polly]

If you know someone with an established healthy aquarium, a little of the dirty water from their filter cleaning would help your tank cycle very quickly 😉

I thought some fish shops were able to give a little of the mulm/filter cleaning water if it was needed?

 

[hjdowning]

If you are in London I can get you some guppies, to get you started. 🙂

That tank is needing some wood, moss and ferns, it would look good.

Ahh, I live miles away, bit far to travel for some guppies 🙂, but thanks for the offer.
Yeah I do need wood, or some feature.. was planning to fill it with as many plants as reasonably possible!

 

[hjdowning]

Hiya,

Sadly there are a lot of shops that aren't aware of something called "Fishless Cycling". As GillesF says basically it's a process where you build up beneficial bacteria which turns ammonia (which comes from fish waste, aka poo and wee) into nitrite and then nitrate. There are quite a few stores that won't sell you a tank and fish in a single purchase for this very reason.

I've got a few guppies as my other half loves them (real little characters) but they're actually quite weak little fish, very prone to disease. If you're planning on having males and females then you need twice as many females as you have males as the males *will* hassle the ladies for some guppy loving - this is possibly what happened as well as there being an ammonia problem. Also be prepared for a lot of young as guppies tend to reproduce as often as they possibly can! I only have males in my tank as I don't want any young uns!

Personally as you still have a couple of guppies left, I'd grab an ammonia and nitrite test kit. This will really be the only time you need a test kit as they're pretty unreliable 😉 Check your ammonia level every evening and then see if you need to do a water change. Ammonia is pretty toxic to fish, but you need enough in the tank to encourage the bacteria to grow but balance that against the fact that too much will kill your fish! I'd say once your test kit hits 1~2ppm ammonia do a 20% water change. Over time your ammonia will naturally lower as those bacteria grow. When it reliably hits 0ppm start to check your nitrites - use the same principal as the ammonia. Once that's reliably 0ppm you can put in a few more fish.

It could well take a few weeks to get things cycled and happy. Be patient, it's worth it in the end, use the time to read through the forum, work out what plants you'd like, find some nice bog wood...

pete

This is obviously my opinion and there are a lot of different methods of cycling - however I have always been told and read that you shouldn't put fish into a tank where there is ammonia or nitrite present.

Just ordered myself an ammonia test kit, your suggestion to test every evening then change water accordingly sounds like a good idea, rather than just blindly changing the water everyday.

The trouble I have is, you can ask ten different peoples advice and get ten different answers.. just trying to filter the good advice from the bad... my local shop didn't ask any questions just sold me the fish.

I will also do as you have done and only buy male guppies in the future, I'd rather be in control of population numbers if I can. 🙂

Thanks for your help

 

[hjdowning]

If you know someone with an established healthy aquarium, a little of the dirty water from their filter cleaning would help your tank cycle very quickly 😉

I thought some fish shops were able to give a little of the mulm/filter cleaning water if it was needed?

I do have a friend with a well established tank I could ask for some of his filter water to get me going, I'll give him a ring see what he says.

Thanks

 

[hjdowning]

Ok not too small then. A smaller tank and they would of poisoned themselves rather fast. I would of ran this for a week without any water changes then stocked 1 pair of guppies. Run that for 3-4 weeks before adding anything else. You need a source of amonnia for the bacteria to feed off in order to mature, or cycle your filter.

I would cut back on daily water changes and do around 30%, once or twice a week. Feed the fish but only lightly.

Finally, if you can throw in some fast growing, hardy stem plants that would help the process.

I'll do as "PeteA" suggested and buy an ammonia test kit and change the water accordingly?

I've not been feeding the fish for the last 4-5 days, how long will they survive with no food, not exactly sure how much to feed them?
Thanks

 

[PeteA]

More than happy to help, guppies can be insane little fish, but full of personality. Females can store sperm for up to six months so sticking with males is a very good way of controlling what you have in the tank 😉 Fish can survive for quite a long time with no food, however I would actually give them a tiny amount of food - what type of food have you got?

Its really difficult filtering out the various opinions and thoughts on what's the right thing to do. I've found that as a general rule the best advice comes from people you find on forums who are interested enough in the hobby to actually research and share experiences with each other.

Another thing I've found is that there are broadly three groups of aquarium enthusiast (at least for a tropical tank) - the planted enthusiast; the fish enthusiast; the shrimp/invert enthusiast. Each is a specialist field in it's own right and can happily be mixed together, but don't expect opinions to be the same from the different groups 😉

pete

 

[hjdowning]

More than happy to help, guppies can be insane little fish, but full of personality. Females can store sperm for up to six months so sticking with males is a very good way of controlling what you have in the tank 😉 Fish can survive for quite a long time with no food, however I would actually give them a tiny amount of food - what type of food have you got?

Its really difficult filtering out the various opinions and thoughts on what's the right thing to do. I've found that as a general rule the best advice comes from people you find on forums who are interested enough in the hobby to actually research and share experiences with each other.

Another thing I've found is that there are broadly three groups of aquarium enthusiast (at least for a tropical tank) - the planted enthusiast; the fish enthusiast; the shrimp/invert enthusiast. Each is a specialist field in it's own right and can happily be mixed together, but don't expect opinions to be the same from the different groups 😉

pete

Wow six month.. that's a long time!
At the moment I'm using "TetraMin Crisps" just got it through recommendation.

Well if you were going to put me in a category, I'd say I'm more interested in the plants (I know the tank doesn't currently express this 🙂 ) but I can hardly have an aquarium with out a few fish. I've not put much though into the layout as you can probably tell from the photo.

How would you "group" yourself? (Planted, fish or shrimp)

Would quite like to buy some plants from the forum, but I think you have to have at least 25 posts before you can access the buy and sell section.

 

[PeteA]

Just looked and TetraMin Crisps are flake food, so you'd be safe just putting in a few flakes - enough that they can eat in a couple of minutes. Any they've not eaten just scoop out so they don't rot & fester at the bottom of the tank.

I was in a very similar situation when I started my tank the early part of the year. Really wanted a nice lush tank but also wanted some fish in there too 😀 One think I've learned (and will be putting into practice soon) is that it's easier to get a lush planted tank running without stock and then add them in once it's all stable. They'll have a much happier home too.

Erm, probably class myself as a mix of all three - I really enjoy my shrimp, but like getting a nice planted tank up too. My other half is probably more of a fish and plant fan.

Start doing a journal and your 25 posts will easily be achieved. Either that or get involved and start asking people how they've achieved certain displays and similar. I personally enjoy the "road of learning" as much as the end result if not more.

 

[hjdowning]

Just looked and TetraMin Crisps are flake food, so you'd be safe just putting in a few flakes - enough that they can eat in a couple of minutes. Any they've not eaten just scoop out so they don't rot & fester at the bottom of the tank.

I was in a very similar situation when I started my tank the early part of the year. Really wanted a nice lush tank but also wanted some fish in there too 😀 One think I've learned (and will be putting into practice soon) is that it's easier to get a lush planted tank running without stock and then add them in once it's all stable. They'll have a much happier home too.

Erm, probably class myself as a mix of all three - I really enjoy my shrimp, but like getting a nice planted tank up too. My other half is probably more of a fish and plant fan.

Start doing a journal and your 25 posts will easily be achieved. Either that or get involved and start asking people how they've achieved certain displays and similar. I personally enjoy the "road of learning" as much as the end result if not more.

Well I'm certainly on the "road of learning", learnt so much already.

My water test kit came in the post, it seems to be suggesting that I have heigh Nitrate.. but its hard to be precise. Ammonia looks to be 0 or close to it, medium to low Nitrite.

Thank you again for all your help

 

[PeteA]

So your tank is partially cycled. You shouldn't find your ammonia increases from now on, but your Nitrite may do - if it goes above 1~2ppm do a water change as before. Your Nitrate will likely continue to increase unless you have quite a high number of plants (plants need it so you don't need to worry until it gets above 50ppm). Other than that it won't be long until you get into a routine of changing water every week.

Oh and you've discovered one important fact about test kits - they're a complete sod to get an "accurate" reading on so generally are only used if there is a problem 😉

 

[bluemoon280]

Just a quick note. When you clean your filter out, don't clean the media out under the tap as the chlorine will kill off all the good bacteria that you will have built up over the last few weeks.
The recommendation to get some fairly quick growing stem plants in will help with the new tank process and also make your tank look good. The usual recommended stems are plants like.

Hygrophila species
Java fern
Rotala species
Anubia species

Generally stay away from cabomba

Cheers

 

[hjdowning]

So your tank is partially cycled. You shouldn't find your ammonia increases from now on, but your Nitrite may do - if it goes above 1~2ppm do a water change as before. Your Nitrate will likely continue to increase unless you have quite a high number of plants (plants need it so you don't need to worry until it gets above 50ppm). Other than that it won't be long until you get into a routine of changing water every week.

Oh and you've discovered one important fact about test kits - they're a complete sod to get an "accurate" reading on so generally are only used if there is a problem 😉

Nitrite seems to be levelling out now, and I'v had no more deaths.
I bought some plants from my local shop, but they seem to have bought many snail friends with them, my friend said he would give me an assassin snail, so hopefully that will sort them out. Apart from that everything seems be be looking good. Just need to get decorating.

 

[hjdowning]

Just a quick note. When you clean your filter out, don't clean the media out under the tap as the chlorine will kill off all the good bacteria that you will have built up over the last few weeks.
The recommendation to get some fairly quick growing stem plants in will help with the new tank process and also make your tank look good. The usual recommended stems are plants like.

Hygrophila species
Java fern
Rotala species
Anubia species

Generally stay away from cabomba

Cheers

Thank you for the list of plants! I have three plants at the moment, but have no idea what they are. I think one of them is 'riccia moss' what ever it is, it's growing VERY fast.

But I'll definitely look into the plants you suggested, I'd like to be able to look through the buy and sell section, but I think you need at lest 25 posts.