Im sad now cuz after my busy day and feeding Mia 1/2 raw eggs in her dog food- I found my pregnant MAMA guppy dead! I have never read any fish posts but I also cant imagine Im the only guppy owner who is also a Furbaby owner! My fiance and I did notice she was HUGE and she gave birth like 2-3 weeks ago, and all of them are very healthy {except the ones MAMA guppy ATE}!!! She was a little teeny baby when I got her and so I am really sad even though shes like the most "unfanciest" fancy guppy female! Terribly plain-but a great "personality!" She did start getting stiff, but I thought she was just getting ready to burst again! I also did a H20 change the day before! My fiance thinks my H2o changes kill them. ANY GUppie owners or former owners advice would be appreciated!!
Well i don't own any guppies, nor do i know anything about them (i know nothing about fish...i've just recently been learning about bettas), so therefore i'm no help to you. but i just wanted to say that i'm sorry to hear that your fish died
Sorry about your Mama guppy! Did you do the water change gradually? When my mom had fish, she would syphon the yuck out of the bottom with tubing, and only remove maybe half of the water from the tank. A sudden change in water temp or PH isn't good. Do you use litmus paper to test the PH in the tank?
Lovin- How much of a water change did you do? How often do you do a water change? Did you put in new carbon? What size is your tank and how many fish are in it? Sorry for all the questions but i need to know to help....lol I know a little about guppies and a lot about fish so maybe i can help. It's worth a try anyway.
I don't have guppies now, but I use to. It was so much fun when they had little ones. They were SO tiny!! I always netted them off in their own area of the tank so that the other fish wouldn't eat them. A few walways died, but I managed to get some grown.
I never changed anything in the tank while they were small. I was too scared to...lol.
The change in water temperature could have killed the mama guppie. Just last week we changed out the water in our tank and lost 3 fish. One was a huge Angelfish. Prior to this, we only changed about 25% of the water once every month. They had a really nice eco-system going, but hubby said it was time to do a thorough cleaning....so he did.....lol
I guess we need to learn more about how and when to do thorough cleanings...lol. Really, if you have the underwater vac, then they probably aren't necessary. You can just get by with changing out a certain percentage of the water. That worked for us for over a year.
Once your tank sets up its onw eco-system, which takes about 6 weeks, then you really don't have to maintain them a whole lot.
I just have a 10 gallon cheapie aquarium we bought at Good Old Walmart, but I did have a little bit of fish keeping experience ,in my past to know that I would need a better filter then the Whisper Filter that came with it! So my filter is good! And I didnt do a much more H2o change then usual! I pretty much eyeball it! Maybe thats my problum! Maybe I should get a kit and check Ph levels! I don't know! But I am glad mama left a "liter" of her behind! This is probably mean to admit, but I left 3 babies in the tank with lots of plants to hide in along with the mother and father guppy. I put the remainding 13 or so in a seperate tank and they have all done well! NO Casualties so I think Im doing one thing right! The ones I left in the bigger 10 gallon have tripled in size compared to the ones I seperated! Is that odd? I was surprised!
Guppies are my favorite. They are native Mexican stream fish and are terribly sensitive to change in temperature/ammonia levels. Get a suction held ammonia reading tag for the tank, so you can see how the water goes. It looks like a 1in. color wheel. Use Cycle by Nutrafin, a dose in the bio-filter, and a dose in the water, every week [1 capful]. Use both Ammolock, and Stress coat in the tap water, before adding to tank. I never was good at water changes. The suction off the bottom is important, but I just add conditioned water, and bacteria, when the level is low, no changing here. I also have a couple ornaments, but no rocks or live plants[collect ammonia, and disintegrate to cause ammonia]. If it is any consolation, the females usually die after they give birth. I had hardier ones when I was a kid, but these days, they are not bred to reproduce. The gups that I had as a kid looked tough, like a Mollie. The males were small, the females were big and mean. The males would all chase the big old girls. These delicate ones are bred in Thailand and other places...The fancier, the older, and more delicate, the fish. The fin is an indication of age. The back is straighter on young ones, and the tail develops as they age, so the prettiest ones are fairly old. The best way to pick them is to look for lively, hungry, fat, horny ones...
By the way, guppies are vegetarians. It makes the water real dirty, so be careful, but if you want to make them real happy, give them a sliver of zucchini [raw]. They will strip the inside off the back. Take the extra out of the tank right away. Guppies are messy eaters, so make sure you have a couple YOUNG, active cory cats to clean up their mess. I saw a pretty white dog like yours, yesterday, some kind of Boxer? She had a pretty, thin collar, blue, with spike/studs, lovely dog.
I have 3 tanks, a 55 gal. and 2 18 gal.s and i do a 1/4 water change maybe once every month. I never clean the bottom. We have sand as a substrate. It is not good to clean the tank completely out of all bacteria because it needs some in the substrate to keep the tank stable. I rinse my carbon filter once a week and replace once a month. The only issue i have with my tanks is sometimes alge but that's about it. The only time i loose a fish is from playing rough (ciclids.......lol) or age. I do have a koi with mouth rot right now but he came with it and i am treating him for it in a seperate tank. It is so hard to tell what kills a fish but i agree you should get a good PH and Amonia test kit.
Oh yeah, and the rule of thumb for how many fish can safely be in a tank is one inch per gallon of water so if your tank is a 10 gal., you can safely have 10 one inch fish.