Sick Guppy!

one of my many male guppies is sick. he trys to eat constantly but always spits it back out. he swims wobbly at the surface and he is very skinny, but when you look down on him he looks like his stomach is a balloon. He also has horrible fin rot, but idk why because none of my other like 50 something guppies in the tank have it, and the water is at perfect levels.

Any ideas on how to save "Bruce"?

You should put "Bruce" in a quarantine tank and try to individually feed him frozen peas. Make sure the peas are thawed and take the skin off the peas. I think he has swim bladder disease from what you described and is easily fixed. If he doesn't eat the peas, try again and don't give him any other food until he eats the pea.

it sounds like dropsy and that means theres no cure for it... i have had a few fish get it they can get skinny or really fat with it but they all end up dead in the end. i could be from overcrowding and in guppy/endler/tetra types when there in large groups a few tend to get it

i forgot to say that he is already quarantined in a large breeder net. ill try the frozen peas idea. any other advice guys?!?!

ok i gave him the peas and he loved them, and he actually ate them and didn't spit them out! can this cure him? he is already swimming to the bottom of the net freely, although he does "wobble". I hope he gets better!

he will leave him in there for at least another week though, and continue feeding him the peas. even if he looks fine leav him in there a little longer

If Bruce is hungry, that is good. Just continue to feed him the peas. Make sure it is only 2 or 3 a feeding for him. Yes swimbladder can be cured. In fact it is one of the easier diseases to cure. Keep us posted.

yay! so is peas the only thing i should feed him? is there any medicine i could buy or something?

thanks!

You say that he has fin rot right? Well the wobbling may be caused from that. Yes just feed him peas and he should do just fine after a few days. You should also get the fin rot treated. I am biased against medications so I would just do daily water changes. But since the guppy is isolated, you could get medication for him.

The guppy doesn't happen to have his scales sticking out giving him a pinecone appearance does he? Is so, that is dropsy and if treated early enough, can be cured.

his scales are fine :]

How is Bruce? Is he still eating the peas? I am somewhat worried if he has dropsy and don't want to misinform you with the wrong disease.

he is still eating the peas and is swimming freely, i think his only problem now is the fin rot, which i still dont understand; oh well.

How large is the aquarium? Guppies tend to over populate a tank then have an epidemic that gets the population under control. Since you have a couple of aquarium shops that will buy fish, you can avoid the over population problem. If none of the other fish have fin rot, maybe Bruce just has torn fins.

he has beautiful LONG fins, he is the most beautiful guppy i have seen, so maybe they are just torn :/

i have 35 gallons with probably 50 guppys, but when my mom gets home from work we are going to take about 20 to Jans fish store, which is quite a famous fish store in wayne county, michigan.

but yes my tank is definitely over populated but i have been working to fix this problem. :]

Here he is, he is sick again. He was sooo much better, all plump and fat, now he is skinny and weak again, so i isolated him.

his tail is just horrible. but none of the other fish have anything wrong with them! it's so confusing!

From the pictures, it looks like the fins could be torn, especially if there are no white spots on them. Guppies are not a long lived fish, and the really fancy ones like Bruce tend to have genetic defects because of the close inbreeding. By the way, isolating him in one of those net cages will protect him from other fish, but if they're sharing the same aquarium water, they will also be sharing any diseases or parasites. Since all the other fish in the tank are healthy, a genetic defect seems to be the likely cause of Bruce's distress. Please keep us posted.

That is rather odd. But it may be a genetic defect as John said. Many cross- gene fish have shortened life spans such as the balloon molly.

He is probably nine months old, and guppies don't live much longer then a year really? So that sounds about right, but he used to be such a beautiful fish!

The reason I isolated him is so the others don't pick on him, and that I can be sure he is eating well. he seems to be happier there anyways.

It's been a few years since I've kept Guppies, but I remember that the males especially have a short lifespan.