What is causing my guppies to be sick?!

Question

I've had guppies for many years now and had never encounter this problem until I moved. At one point I had over 100 guppies in my tank back at my parents. This past winter I transferred half the population to a new bigger tank at my new home. Within a week or two, their tails no longer flared out, they just kinda of scrunched together and collapsed. Within a day or two of this symptom, they would die with complete immobility. About 10 of 75 guppies lived, if that. This even did not affect my two Cories. Yesterday, I transferred the remainder guppies from the tank at my parents to the one here, and I see the symptoms once more. At least half the guppies have their tails collapsing inward. Even their dorsals are not as perky . . . what could this epidemic be? How do I fix/cure it?

Answer 1

do u get them used to water before the transfer of the guppies... that could be your problem or there maybe sick with ick and that is very hard to get rid of...

Answer 2

They might just be stressed from having to adapt to different water, or they could have suffered from new tank syndrome if the tank hadn't fully cycled. Guppies are not as hardy as Corie's due to inbreeding for fancy coloring so any mild changes in water chemistry could have stressed them enough to death, or one could have developed a bacterial infection due to the shock of being moved to a different tank, and stressed fish cannot fight off infections very well so the infection would have affected all of the weaker guppies. Some probably survived because they are just naturally hardier and can adapt to change more easily, but the infection could still be in the tank which is why the new guppies moved in are also suffering.

I would check the water chemistry (ammonia, PH, nitrate, nitrite) and as a precaution use an anti bacterial medication such as Melafix. If you don't want to medicate, add something such as Stress-Zyme or Stress-Coat to add beneficial bacteria and hopefully cure your guppies. Hope this helped.

Answer 3

This happened to my guppies when I moved as well. I started with about 80 and ended up with about 5 or 6. It's very likely that it was something to do with the new water. They most likely went into some sort of shock from the water change and just a few of the strongest ones happened to adjust fine to it.