# Guppies keep dying.



## Ponera (Oct 31, 2011)

I've had one male, a female and now my other male succumb to this. Their caudal fin gets narrow and their spine curves at a weird angle, downward. They lose weight rapidly and then just die. The symptoms in the male happened in the last 12 hours or so. 


Any ideas?


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## Sorafish (Sep 15, 2011)

Hexamita. I could go on and on about it, but I've already written up an explanation here:
http://guppybreeding.webs.com/guppydiseases.htm
Could be wrong, but wasting away is a major indicator.
Also, the curving of the spine can point towards this, as this indicates Lordosis, which is another symptom of Hexamita.


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## Ponera (Oct 31, 2011)

Ah, I see. That would explain things, I suppose. Is it something I should worry about transferring to any other tanks (goldfish/cichlids)? How contagious is it? Should I just purge this 5 gallon tank and start over with a fresh batch of feeder guppies to breed?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

cichlids get hexamita. It gives SAs "hole in the head". Really hard to totally get rid of. I say purge and bleach. If you want to try and save them, take the whole tank to another room and give it its own fish stuff. I'm starting to think I should QT fish 2 floors up from the room with all the rest.


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## Ponera (Oct 31, 2011)

This disease has been present for several months, if this is the case, which means the fry I fed to the newts (same tank as cichlids and newts) so hopefully they don't die. I'll purge the guppy tank tomorrow, including their snaily friends and the plants, if necessary.

Mine are african, brichardis to be specific. The newts I am not overly worried about- I killed anchor worm on one of them by putting him in the fridge for a week!


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Hex is far more common and dangerous in soft water. You don't hear much about hex in Africans and one of the recommendations to treat it is to add calcium to the water. I don't think you should panic, but rinsing all hoses, buckets, nets, etc. with a bleach solution, rinsing and letting them dry would be a good idea. It is one of those things that is so common that people argue you should fight it with a healthy fish rather than meds. But I have no doubt there are nasty, lethal strains out there. 

I think you should avoid 'feeders' as feeders. Some feeders are kept in such bad conditions its nearly impossible to get healthy ones to start with. Consider getting a dozen limia pergiae or endler's and starting a colony that has never been to a store.


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## Ponera (Oct 31, 2011)

Well the three feeder females I had survived for about a year in the newt tank, spawning a few times each. So I figured they were strong...it's the males that keep dying and they are the fancy ones!


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## Sorafish (Sep 15, 2011)

Agreed with Emc7. 'Healthy fish' is the easiest way to cure it. Calcium and Magnesium are the best to add. For some reason, they recover better in high GH & KH. I wouldn't worry about the snails. I've never had an issue with snails and Hexamita. But, since a lot of fish have Hexamita and live healthily, it really is an issue of making sure the GH & KH are appropriate for the fish. 
It usually only strikes when your fish are sick to begin with.
Its an internal parasite that inhabits the digestive tract. When the fish get sick, or have bad water conditions (or don't get the appropriate nutrients) the parasite will spread to other organs, and the stomach, which is what ends up killing the fish. Though, sometimes they will stay in the digestive tract, multiply too quickly, and leach all nutrients from the fish, which causes the 'starving/wasting away' and the Lordosis, in cases where they've had it from fry to adulthood.


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

If you bleach this tank make sure you stir the gravel several times, turning it over etc as you bleach it. When I have bleached tanks in the past I have put in fairly strong solutions and run it through the filter for a few days. I turned the gravel over a couple of times a day. The tank was kept full of water to the point where it was almost over the interior brim. Needless to say- the tank was fine  

I suppose another option for that would be to purge the tank and then treat the disease in there as if the fish were still there. Again I would stir the gravel. I have no idea if this would actually help anything, but the "idea" of it seems logical and it would be easier to then re-cycle. I am going to say it though it should be quite obvious: Do not put that filter on another tank to re-seed.


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## Sorafish (Sep 15, 2011)

When my mom was fighting Hexamita she bleached her tank. All she succeeded in doing was starting another cycle, and killing a good portion of her fish. The ones that survived were still infected with Hexamita, and didn't get better until we treated the cause of the problem. New fish introduced into the tank have NOT gotten it. However, if you are feeding your guppies to other fish...as this is an internal parasite, it WILL infect them. But, again, it doesn't cause deaths unless there is actually something wrong already.


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## Ponera (Oct 31, 2011)

They are only feeding newts, who are exceedingly resilient to disease (I recently cured anchorworm by isolating one in a fridge at 3 Celsius for about a week). I fed two adult guppies dying with these symptoms to the newts and have had no ill effects. They are the kind of predator that really does a lot of feeding on sick/dying animals; only one of the three has proven capable of catching healthy fish!

I don't have any gravel in the guppy actually. It has a few random plastic hiding places, a bunch of java moss, a sponge filter and that is it. I wonder why it is that the feeder guppies are less prone to being symptomatic of this disease and the males, which are fancies, are dropping like flies?


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## Sorafish (Sep 15, 2011)

Fancies are normally bred in sterile conditions. Feeders are raised in less than good conditions, so are more resilient.


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