Please Help me Identify and treat this

Oct 12, 2011
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#1
I have had 2 male guppies in my tank, one for the last 15 months and the other one for 13 odd months. I have never had any other fish or more than 2 fish in this tank.
Both guppies have been fine but since the last few weeks I noticed a discoloration on the tail of one of the guppy (a rust like color), and red/orange streaking on the tail of the green guppy. Since the last 3 weeks this streaking has spread to a major part of the tail, and I can see some bubble like growth where the tail meets the body of the green guppy. I also noticed a 3-4 small bubble like growths on the dorsal fin of the blue guppy.
Since then I have been doing a 25% weekly water change. Last week I started dosing the tank with melafix and finished seven days today. Today I did a 25% water change; the problem doesn't seem to have gone away instead I think the green guppy’s tail has probably shrunk. I have attached 3 pics; have marked the abnormal growth in a red circle, and used a blue marker to draw what I think used to be the length/shape of the tail
Guppy.jpg
Could you please help me?


Below are my tank specs.

Fish : 2 Guppies (Green Fantail since 15 months, blue-velvety since 13 months)
Fed: on pellets every alternate day.

Tank details : Fluval Chi 25Lts - Set up since 15 months, Fresh Water, Tropical maintained between 24-26C
Plants: 1 small live plant
Heater : 1 heater in summer, 2 in winter (water tmp drops below 22 with 1 heater in winter)
Substrate : Gravel & Pebbles
Ornament – Synthetic hollow rock ornament.
Filtration system : Fluval three stage - mechanical, chemical, and biological filter
Light: Fluval LED Light switched on for 5-6 hours in the evening, mild/ filtered (through curtain) sunlight exposure on exceptionally sunny days.


Water parameters
Test kit: Nutrafin Mini Master
Ammonia : 0
Nitrate : 10
Nitrite : 0.3
Water change: every 2 weeks
Volume of water change: 50%
Tap water dosed with Interpet Bioactive Tap Safe?
Gravel Vacuumed with every water change
Filter washed every 2 weeks and changed every month
 

FreshyFresh

Superstar Fish
Jan 11, 2013
1,337
23
38
East Aurora, NY
#2
Not sure about the fin issue Denis, but you shouldn't have any nitrites in a properly cycled tank. You should be 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitirites and under 40ppm nitrates.

What parts of the filter are you washing? Are you using tank water for that?
 

Oct 12, 2011
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#3
@FreshyFresh; I have till yet never changed the bio media only the filter. I wash the filter and bio media every time I do a water change in the fish tank water.

the nitrite level could probably be lower I cant see a lot of colour in the test tube 0.3 is an estimate.. Sorry I should have put something like <0.3

Not sure about the fin issue Denis, but you shouldn't have any nitrites in a properly cycled tank. You should be 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitirites and under 40ppm nitrates.

What parts of the filter are you washing? Are you using tank water for that?
 

Oct 12, 2011
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#4
I did a lot of water changes and all parameters were normal over a few days then I removed the carbon and dosed the tank with Intetpet No8 for FinRot.

Even this did not improve the condition on the tail and 3 days later there was a not much left of the tail, the following evening when I came back from work the guppy was lying on his side breathing heavily.. I checked water parameters but no spikes even then did a 30% change just in case it was the medication that was causing this..
He was struggling to swim.. after a bit of rest he'd lunge forward but without much of his tail he couldn't paddle and would fall back.
The following morning I found him dead on the gravel.. RIP my Green Guppy