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Hi all,

I've been doing a lil research on guppies for a while because I wanted to buy guppies for my tank. I read in this forum that some guppy keepers keep on getting guppy deaths. I've been wondering about that myself since alot of ppl recommend guppies as a starter fish. Why do they die so fast and in such spreading manner? If so how come they are recommended as beginner fishes?

My tank is a 55gal
Ammonia=0
NitrItes=0
NitrAtes=20-30
Ph=6-6.2
Temp is at 27oC - 80oF
Fluval 204 + Aquaclear 300 (Filtering)

Ocuppants
Pair of black lace angels (breding pair)
3 Danios
10 cories
2 Bn's
1 pitbull
2 Flying foxes
2 Spotted Raphaels
5 guppies
2 mountain shrimps
x # of ghost shrimps they are breeding!!

Well to start off I wanted to keep these fishes for a while but couldn't because I had a 25gal tank b4. I've made plans to upgrade my tank to a 55gal because fishes were kinda getting crowded(my 55 is setup btw just waiting to get my digicam to take some pics!). Now that I have upgraded to my 55gal I've decided to get more fishes: fill up my schools, rams, another school of fish and GUPPIES.

After all my researching I have finally got 3 guppies to start with 2f and 1m. At first they were bugged by the angels and kinda stress but they settled in my tank pretty fast. Seeing them so active on the second day I went to get 5 more on the forth day boosting up the total to 8: 5f 3m. Just until abt a week later the first death occured. She seems to be very still, not eating and just staying at one place, mostly on the top. I seperated it right away and put in some melafix few hrs later it's gone. So I thought it was just that guppy but the story goes on. The second one died a day after the first one. It was fine until yesterday when another one of my guppies died. Now I see another one that is gonna die too! B4 they die they just sit at the top still swimming ocasionally and not eating. I am supsecting the temp and Ph but after reading at one of the post guppies do well in the range of 75-80oF if not the temp can it be the ph?

I would like to get things straight for myself and other new ppl to guppies. It's just a sad exp to get beautiful fish that die on u so fast...

Gee

Gee

!!I think I just learned somthing new!!

I have had a plethora of guppy deaths. I can tell you my experience in a nutshell:
Cost of Guppys for Breeding Stock: $250
Cost of Medication for sick/dying: $150
Cost of Using a Quarantine tank: Priceless.
If you are gonna buy guppies, I recommend investing in a 5 or 10g tank for a quarantine tank. And keep those fish in there for at least 25 days!
I have lost almost 100 young fish and almost 50 adults because of 4 ill guppies I introduced into my population without knowing they were ill.
Guppies are hardy only if well bred and only if you quarantine them before!!
I could only imagine if I had added these guppies to my 90g tank, I would have probably in excess of $1000 dollars worth of fish dead or dying. A Quarantine tank is a must. You dont want to lose your angels and your other fish.
Guppies have been so badly inbred over the past 50 years, they are susceptible to diseases most fish arent.
I love them, they are wonderful friendly beautiful fish, but I have decided they are not the fish for me. Leave them to pros with money to burn, because I cant afford to lose any more fish.

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Hi,

The funny thing is that the guppies looks so active in their tank(lfs) and after mere lil trasportation it causes so much problems. I hope the rest of the crew survive. If they do, it could mean they are the well breeded ones! Hey I can't loose all the guppies!! I'm left with 1m and 4f. 1f looks like it's gonna...:#(

I hear all these "MY GUPPY IS PREGNET" etc. I can't even seem to keep them alive


Gee

!!I think I just learned somthing new!!

Hi!

When I first got my 20g tank, Shannen took me to the fish store to pick out some fish... He walked me around saying, how about this, how about that... I didn't know too much of anything at the time. After circling around fish tank after fish tank, trying to decide what I wanted, I chose the 1/2 black leopard guppies, they were sooo pretty.

I lost a couple due to my cycle, Shannen tried to warn me that they probably would not make it as they are not as strong as a danio or goldfish when going through a cycle...I went and bought some more. Then we did something stupid that was our fault that caused every one to die after having fry except one (fungus)... After that, I have not had any deaths except for the time Shannen tried to be nice and buy me some guppies he thought were pretty from the LFS. They ended up having the black plague (culmanaris I think) that killed every last guppy in that tank (I was up to 3 guppy tanks at that point, this happened to be the tank w/all my male breeding stock).

Now, my lines are strong and I have around 100 guppies/fry. I need to take some to the LFS or put them up for auction....but I am having a hard time parting from them. Just hang in there! Be sure when you buy some more guppies from the LFS, the tank is clean and all of the guppies look healthy. A lot of times when I look, there are always a few that don't look so well. When this is the case, I wouldn't buy anything out of that tank.

Like SneakyPete said above, a quarantine tank is important. I am also wondering if the guppies go well in a tank with angelfish. The prior angelfish Shannen had was very mean and kept all of the other fish hiding behind plants towards the bottom of the tank, which is enough to stress anyfish to death I think!

Good luck and I hope all goes well with you!

Last edited by ~jamie~ at 10-Feb-2005 06:49

Hi Jamie,

Could u umm pass me some fry...
Your case sounded so much like mine at frist, but my tank is cycled already. Everytime a guppy would die I would do a water check and my readings are 0-0-30~. So u mean I should quarantine them for 25 days before I put them into my main tank like sneaky_pete said? The last guppy I said that looks bad just past away this morning:#( I hope the rest of the batch stays strong and survive.

Gee

Gee

!!I think I just learned somthing new!!

My experience is quite simple...started to breed guppies since a young boy and sort of got tired of them. Those time only the snake skins were around thus no fun. But once I started to own my own freshwater tank, I looked into breeding guppies further more and began to go crazy for them. I started looking around the lfs looking for some quality breeding stock, but didnt have any luck...until I found out that my dad's family friends import there own fish and started to get in some nice breeding stock. Breed them for about 3 years now and came up with some of my own strains of Red Snakes, Black Deltas and Yellow Deltas. After reading some articles on IFGA (International Fancy Guppy Assos.) and a well known breeder, I decided to send some pictures to Judge and Breeder of IFGA.

He replied:

Hi Steve

What you have there are red snakes.
They have good body size but if you wanted to show them competitively you
will need to work on larger Caudal and Dorsal.
Caudal should be 1 to 1, 1 unit body to one unit Caudal.
Dorsal should be 3 to 1, 1 unit high to 3 units long and in the shape of a
Para gram.

Regards
Doug White

After reading that email, Im slowly beginning to work on my strains to improve my strain quality. I keep getting about 3-5 batchs a month from each breeding colonies and have lots of fry growing up nicely. I have heard that the albino gene in guppies have came into Australia...and I was thinking crossing these genes into my Red Snakes...so I'll get Albino Red Snakes...but that will have to wait until my lines get better.

I started off with lfs guppies then getting into the imported stock...hope all goes good for you.

Cheers
Mango :^)

Cool, good luck Mango!

*passes on fry to those in need*

I hope so too! Those 4 that are left are doing really well. Down to 4 females and 1 male. Waiting for my first batch of fry and see what happens.

Thx guys/gals

Gee

Gee

!!I think I just learned somthing new!!