Sick male green cobra guppy

[Jillybeaner]

We've had our male green cobra guppy for about a month and a half. He was very active, playing with the other fish all over the tank. About 5 days ago he was hanging out at the bottom of our tank, laying upright on the gravel, breathing rapidly. We have a 10 gallon tank, ph is 8 (I know it's high but it's been that way from the beginning, we can't seem to keep it lowered), the amonia is at zero(we had problems with our amonia before and finally got that down), and we do a 25% water change once a week, give or take a day. We also bought a new air pump to increase the oxygen. The filter pad gets changed every 3 weeks or so and it's washed off first in the old tank water before being put in the filter. He eats at the top and then goes back down to the bottom. He's starting to pale in color on his body and his tail is fading a bit. The other fish nudge him once in a while and he runs away and hides. His belly isn't bloated and his scales are not sticking out so I know he doesn't have dropsy. We've tried looking up the answers ourselves but have come up with nothing. There are 4 other fish in our tank, a blue dwarf gourami, a marble molly, a cherry barb, and another male guppy so we don't want to put in any chemicals unless it's necesary. We do not have a seperate tank to put him in, we just have him quartered off in a breeding box so the other fish don't hassle him, we didn't put him in there until tonight so I don't know if he's pooping, we'll see tomorrow. None of his symptoms match any of the deseases we've been reading and are hoping it's not a parasite. We are going to try giving him mashed peas to eat tomorrow in case he's constipated but would that make him lose color? All of the other fish are fine and show no symptoms of this at all. We feed them a mixture of flakes and blood worms. The tank light is on for about 12-14 hours a day while we are at work. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[annageckos]

What are your parameters? If your ph is stable do not try to lower it. It is more important to have a stable ph than a perfect ph. What kind of filter do you have? You shouldn't be throwing away the filter media(unless you have a bio wheel) when you clean the filter. The media has your benifical bacteria. The best way to clean the filter is to take a bucket of your tank water and sqeeze the dirty media out in it. You may have caused a mini cycle every time you clean the filter. You may want to up your water changes to 30-50% each week. And last, what kind of test kit are you using? If it is strips you should get a good liquid test kit like API master test kit. The stirps are highly inaccurate.

[Jillybeaner]

we use both the strips and drops to test amonia. i change the part of the filter that has the coal in it, not the part that has the bacteria in it.

[annageckos]

Bacteria grows on all parts of the filter. I would also not use carbon unless you are trying to take meds out of the water or clear up the tank. What are the numbers on ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. You should always know these if you have a problem with the tank. But we need the reading from the liqiud test kit, not the strips.

[Jillybeaner]

ok so without knowing all that stuff and since the rest of my fish in the tank are NOT sick, just him, what could be wrong with him

[HeatherB]

It could just be the guppy. I can't keep guppies. I have tried and tried, but regardless, I could buy like 20, and half would die over the span of 2 days. The others may hang on for weeks but then-BOOM they die on my too. It's a shame because I really like them!!

People on here and other sites as well have told me it could be because of the strain on the 'breed' (I guess thats the right word) like, they are not as hardy as they used to be?

[Jillybeaner]

nevermind, he just died :( my little Lumpy went to his watery grave. thanks anyway. for some reason whenever we buy 2 of the same kind one of them dies. our gouramis, mollies, and now guppies. and he was so prettifull.

[backlashforblow]

What are your parameters? If your ph is stable do not try to lower it. It is more important to have a stable ph than a perfect ph. What kind of filter do you have? You shouldn't be throwing away the filter media(unless you have a bio wheel) when you clean the filter. The media has your benifical bacteria. The best way to clean the filter is to take a bucket of your tank water and sqeeze the dirty media out in it. You may have caused a mini cycle every time you clean the filter. You may want to up your water changes to 30-50% each week. And last, what kind of test kit are you using? If it is strips you should get a good liquid test kit like API master test kit. The stirps are highly inaccurate.



Well, sounds good to me. Helped me out alot anyways. Thanks

[koline]

I also agree with you, but I am not change anything!

[Stlouisfish]

Wow - this is like a really old thread LOL