know anything about guppies?

my mom loves guppies. but i dont know much about them so i dont know how to help her with the problem shes having. the guppies will be fine for a week in their 10 gal. tank then their tails will start to lose color and the next morning they are dead. but heres the kicker, its only the males. females dont seem to have any trouble. but i took them out of the ten gal. and put them in a five gal. med tank and they do fine. any ideas?

How many are in the 10 gal? could be overcrowded. What are the parameters (ammonia, nitrites and nitrates)

water perameters seem to be good. and ther was only 5 in the tank. 2 of witch were males. both died. but there are alot of babies and they seem fine. but this keeps happing. so im lost. i rase angels so i dont know how to help.

HHMMM!!!! Are the male babies dieing? What kind of guppies, store bought or breeder bought?

i was thinking water paramneter too, like bad water quality. but i have heard of thios before in another forum. i never knew the outcome.

they are store bought .but i made sure she know how to use a med tank and not just throw them in whit helth fish. but it has done no good. im begaining to think the is something wrong with the fish shes buying. they came from petsmart. i dont know any breeders neer here. or i would tell her to get them there.

Store bought are usually mass produced in large quantity and likely cheap hybrid that will catch everything and may even just be weak from over breeding. Check your local CL and Put an ad in the pet section for guppies. See what's out there.

I don't know I bought my originals at petsmart....what is pH (please no more" its good") and what is the stores pH (petsmart usually buffer to 7.0, but it can drop due to overcrowding feeding ect... is there any ammonia in the tank guppies are greatly effected by ammonia young can actually handle slightly worse conditions than adults for a while.

Also are you just netting them from your 5 gal Qt tank into the 10 gallon? If so you might want to drip them in a bucket for a while to acclimate them.

Are the guppies eating, being fed enough...females in my tanks will bully males away from the food sometimes (one day it should not matter much a week might be enough to kill them)?

Do the guppies show signs of stress rapid breathing, clamped fins (males should usually be out)? If so check water for ammonia again.

Are there any other fish in the tank with the guppies??Do any of the guppies fins appear split or nipped? Bright males usualy become target for other faster fish.

Another consideration is what type of pipes are in the house....just googled guppy disease and found out that copper pipes will cause guppy deaths(same with lead).
If she is using well water it might have a contamenant also.

Really sorry to hear this my Guppies bring me a ton of joy, bought them to cycle a tank and they just stayed.

Also I have never had any problems with my petsmart guppies not vouching for PS just saying I got lucky.

ok good info thanks elrollo! ammonia is 0 ppm. ph is 6.5. and like i said its only the males. babies are doing fine. she does have copper pipes in her house. but i never thought about that as a problem. maybe i should get a heavy mettle test kit. and check her water again. thank you for that info. makes alot of since.

I've done extremely well with guppies over the years - even ended up with over 50 from 3 thrown in my outdoor tadpole pond. No feeding, no filtering, nothing - they just survived and flourished off of mosquito larva and algae all summer. Only difference between the ones my kids netted out of the small pond at the end of summer and my tank-raised was the overall body size. Pond stock were smaller with much enlarged fins.

Basically, I've found guppies to be the toughest fish outside of goldfish! I do mix males/females from different stores and different fin colors, with a dash of feeder females to increase genetic diversity.

Your pH is a concern. I know it 'says' they can handle it, but I've had much better luck with pH of 7.5-8 and naturally mineral-dense hardwater. (our county's tap is pH of 8) Also, they seem to color up better with some epson salts and aquarium salts. I also give them a mix of feeds to choose from. Goldfish flakes, tropical flakes, spirulina flakes - and when they start picking at my snails I drop in some shrimp pellets, blood worms and algae pellets.

Also, what temp is your tank? I've had the best of luck without any heaters.Tank temps are 69-70 at night then rise to 76-78 during the day with the hood light heating it. The ones in the pond thrived in temperatures from 88 down to 59. They also do the best with no water changes and just adding water for evaportion - go figure..

I've seen guppies do very well in some of the worst water conditions. My pond generally had some serious spikes in ammonia and nitrate when the tadpole populations rose and fell. So it's not my experience that the males are all that sensitive. In fact, we ended up netting 3 males for every female at the end of the summer!

Let's go into the copper idea since Cu pipes are involved.

Cu will form salts readily with the Cl and F in the tap water. These salts in sufficient concentration will be toxic to higher organisms like the fish.

My recommendation is four-fold: #1 - obtain tap water from a different house that does not have copper pipes. #2 - if the tap water is acidic (<7) purchase a 7.5 buffer pack from your local petstore or put a piece of marble stone in there until the pH rises to over 7.5-8 (Natural buffer). #3 - add appropriate amounts of epsom salt and aquarium salt for electrolites. #4 - mix up several types of flaked foods.

Good luck!

i can give her some of my tap water and see if it helps. its ph is a 7.6. or i have RO water in my rain barral that i use for my angels. ph 7.8. i have to use a buffer on it to lower it to a 7.0 for the angels. her timp is around 78 in the day to 70 at night with the light off. i did not know that marble could be used as a buffer. the new info. and thank you for all your help!

Marble is metamorphized Limestone, thus its base component is calcium carbonate. It's in a much more stable molecular matrix - so it won't cause quick drastic pH rises like the limestone. But it will slowly leach out alkaline buffers.

PS - and it looks really neat and sparkles under aquarium lighting if you choose specimens with a lot of quartz/silicon intrusions (crystals). I keep some in my African Cichlid tank along with Limestone (for even higher pH)

Good luck!

thats a lot to take in. thanks

Sorry, I actually shortened my really indepth explanation. Blame it on teaching chemistry 7 hours a day for the last couple of years. Acid - base reaction in water (what's going on when you add buffers or limestone/marble to a tank) has always fascinated me.

And to top it off I'm in a Masters program in Geoscience (think geology+) and now I find myself delving in deep on the differences between types of rock and how they affect the water chemistry in a system/tank.

Basically, the marble will do the same thing as adding baking soda - but at a much slower rate and greatly reduced level. Thus, making it easier to find the perfect time to remove the marble when your tank has reached the right pH.

ahh! got it! now i understand.lol laymens terms. that way it makes more since to the not so smart people like me!

Don't refer to yourself as 'not so smart' - I'm sure there are things you know/do that I can not even conceive of. (My husband is always building things - I have two left thumbs.... LOL )

Let's just say I have specialized in an area of study that you have not. Neither of us is any 'smarter' than the other.

lol i can live with that. im a welder by trade. i ment just not book smart! but i love learning about fish. so info is always welcome.