Fancy Guppy Question!

[CHARLi3]

Ok, I have a five gallon tank with three fancy guppies, two males and one female (I think). There's also a few other fishies in there, but my main concern is the female. I've noticed over the past few days (after 2 of my other fishies died) that she started to act strange. She swims vertically rather than horizontally like normal fishies do.

I feed them a small pinch 2 times a day, once at noon and once at midnight-ish. Reason for feeding is the gravel is clean when we come home and go happily after the flakes.

She's still eating, but how she's swimming is worrying. I've put in a few different types of medicines in the water to try and help her. The males won't leave her side and if she starts to sink, they poke her to make her swim again. I've watched and it doesn't look like they've been nipping at her fins (but encase they have I've put in medicine to help restore them).

No, i don't put the medicines in together, but different days. I'm going to do a water change today and see if it might help her out.. Any suggestions?

[Oldfishlady]

To start...I would get her in QT and post a pic of her....plus we need more info...

In the 5gal tank-how many and what species of fish and any other livestock, live plants, filter, water temp, additives used, how long has it been setup/running, how much and how often are the water changes...list all the medication used.
List all sign/symptom of the fish that died and what species too....

Do you have any water pram numbers for both the tank and source water and type of test products used.

What is the source water.

[CHARLi3]

We used to have ghost shrimp (which killed a handful of fish and nearly whiled out our entire tank) but now there are the 3races guppies, 1 Mollie, and 3 tetras (originally to go in a tank with our betta buuut that didn't work out too well), and a small pleco (not really sure his species). We did have 2to other mollies at the purchase of this Mollie but the first separated himself from the other two (he wasn't right when we first brought him home) and ended up dying first. The second Mollie was hiding out in a cave (took forever to find him, black and white) and at first I didn't realize he was going belly up but then I removed the cave after further inspection that he was alive but belly up. We woke up the next morning to him alive, went to work and I found him belly up inside of a castle we have. Made the boyfriend fish him out.

The previous Mollie we had before we got guppies was white with black spots and he'd just swim up and down at the sides of the tank, we think he saw his reflection and one morning he was belly up. The tanks been running for a few moths and gets water changes weekly and filter changes biweekly. They have a heater and the temp is a rather warm 84 degrees. I came back to the apartment to find that they've been nipping at her so I placed her in her own 1 gallon tank for now.

The medicines we've used are melafix and stress coat, as well as water clearer. Last big water change we used aqua safe. She's constantly pooping and a photo might have to wait im not sure how to get a photo up from a phone and this phone has a horrible camera. We don't have any plants, we had a REALLY bad start with plants that resulted in death of fish (but im thinking of real plants this time just need to research them). Haven't tested the water recently and we've been using tap water but making the descion to use spring water when we can het containers for the roughly 20 gallons that we need.

[LittleBettaFish]

If all those fish are in a 5 gallon that tank is massively overstocked and you really need to re-home all of them to a much bigger tank. Also tetras should not be housed with mollies as they prefer a much lower pH and KH than mollies, which do best in harder, brackish water.

If you are only doing water changes weekly and are changing your filter media out or rinsing it in tap water (never do these two things as you are effectively wiping out any good bacteria that has established itself there), your problem is going to be water quality.

You need to purchase a liquid test kit for ammonia and nitrite and test your water. Anything over 0ppm, even 0.25ppm is too much and requires an immediate water change.

Stop medicating. Melafix is useless and is probably just stressing everyone out more. But you really need to purchase a 15-20 gallon tank, and properly cycle it (google 'fish-in cycling' and you will find lots of information) as your first priorities. If water quality is poor it will kill or severely compromise the health of your fish.

[Sheldon31]

I don't think it was plants or new fish that killed your fish but over crowding and terrible water quality. Plecs and mollies are very heavy on bioloads alone. I had 1 molly in my tank for little over 3 weeks and he produced enough poop to keep me hopping alone. Plecs (even little bristenose plecs) need larger tanks. 5 gal is terribly small. I'd say your fish are suffering from poisoning and need putting into larger tank immediately!