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Your guppy sounds like "bloat", which is the common name for "internal infection" - causes the body to swell up and the fish to die if not treated immediately. Guppies do not live for very long, so it may just be "what happened to kill it" - just like many old humans die from pneumonia - but it's not so much because they got pneumonia and died from that, but rather that the human body was not strong enough to fight the disease that killed him/her. Likewise for "old" fish - they all die from something - and "bloat" is not unusual.

I bought all new filter media and the new stuff Juwel have bought out, those lil white stone things.

This worries me - replacing the fitler media in your filter essentially starts a new cycling phase. In my Rio 400 tank, I changed the filter sponges once in three years until the filter pump packed up and I replaced the Juwel Jumbo filter with an external filter - and that was a gradual replacement (one sponge at a time). I don't see how you would need to replace your filter sponges at this time. [And I'm actually still using the fine sponges in a different filter now, nearly exactly 4 years after I bought the tank]

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Mats

Okay, what is the treatment for bloat, just incase I have any future casualties.

I only changed the Poly Pad, Nitrate Sponge and the Filter Sponge Course. And took out 1 Fine blue sponge to have room for the Cirax.

I've got a little leflet that says

Change:
Poly Pad - Weekly
Carbon Sponge - 1 month
Nitrate Sponge - 2 month
Blue Course Sponge - 3 month
Cirax - 12 month
Fine Blue Sponge - 9 or 12 month

slakey wrote: Change:
Poly Pad - Weekly
Carbon Sponge - 1 month
Nitrate Sponge - 2 month
Blue Course Sponge - 3 month
Cirax - 12 month
Fine Blue Sponge - 9 or 12 month

These are more aimed at continued purchases of the filter media! You should be rinsing out the sponges periodically in tank water (best time is when doing a water change), but never all at one time, i.e. next water change, rinse 1, following one, rinse another and so on. As Mats says, replacing all those sponges in one hit means you have lost most, if not all, of your beneficial bacteria and the tank will need to cycle again - not good when it's stocked. Keep an eye on the nitrite levels, and do regular water changes to try and stop the fish from suffering from nitrite poisoning.
Martin

Poly Pads are pretty much unwashable... and I cleaned the fine blue sponge in the tank water.

Damn so I've pretty much set my fishes, death sentence
Should I be checking daily for Nitrate, Nitrate and Ammonia spikes?

slakey wrote:Poly Pads are pretty much unwashable... and I cleaned the fine blue sponge in the tank water.

Yes, they are not washable, and should be replaced regularly - I don't disagree with that.

Damn so I've pretty much set my fishes, death sentence
Should I be checking daily for Nitrate, Nitrate and Ammonia spikes?

The ones to watch most for (to begin with at least) is the ammonia spikes - if you get an ammonia spike you will most likely get nitrite spiking a couple of days later. Nitrate will not spike, as that is the end product of the nitrowaste cycle, and is really "a good thing" in the sense that it indicates that your filter bacteria is actually working as they should - like everything, it's good "in moderation".

I expect that the nitrate absorbing/adsorbing sponges are not "eternal" either - but then I doubt they actually do enough good to be worth it if you have high nitrates in the first place - you'd be replacing them several times a week as they get saturated [although I have not tried that mytself].

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Mats

Well I done water tests for Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate at 5pm

Ammonia - 0.25ppm - 0.50ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 10ppm

Now you have the difficult choice of making a water change to reduce the ammonia and improve the water quality - but also prolong the cycling period, or leave the water be, and hope that the bacteria in the tank is capable of keeping the ammonia in checks. I would stop feeding right now, and only feed maybe every third day until the tank is cycled.

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Mats

Yeah I havent put any food in tonight as there is still 1 and a 1/2 of the new life spectrum wafers in there from yesterday. Should I remove that? Or leave for the fish to feed on?

I'd remove any left-over food - particularly if the fish aren't looking at it with interest.

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Mats

Well the Otto's seem to be eating it at the minute, or one has found the half bit.

Suppose I'll have to wait a while before adding some shrimp in.

MatsP wrote:Now you have the difficult choice of making a water change to reduce the ammonia and improve the water quality - but also prolong the cycling period, or leave the water be, and hope that the bacteria in the tank is capable of keeping the ammonia in checks. I would stop feeding right now, and only feed maybe every third day until the tank is cycled.

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Mats

Slakey - having any ammonia reading other than zero is not good - if you can get it - add a couple of capsules of BluStart made by Ferplast. It is a bacterial activator & rapidly matures aquarium water - i've had brilliant success with it when in dire circumstances. approx £7.50 for a box of 20 capsules.

Found some for £9.39

Should that help with me getting shrimp quicker, cos they are my second priority after sorting out the water.

having the best qualiy water possible is alway a first priority.

Once that's ben achieved, stock can slowly be increased, whatever it is.

Okay thanks.
How long will it take for the capsules to kick in once, I've put them in the tank?

Okay I'm trying to get free postage here, so I'm looking at things to buy for the tank.

Ferplast BluStart - £9.39
Tetra Fresh Delica Daphnia - £3.89 (anyone tried these?)
4 Cladophora aegagropila - £3.95 each
Easy Life EasyCarbo 500ml - £9.99

Total - £39.07 (for free postage I need to spend £40+)

Any good medications I should buy, as I pretty much have nothing except Stress Coat *not exactly medication*
So any help into what medications I should get would be great.

slakey wrote:Okay thanks.
How long will it take for the capsules to kick in once, I've put them in the tank?

Each tank is slightly different but as an idea - (in an emergency) i used 3 capsules in a brand new 4 foot set-up in the morning & added fish in the evening with no casualties or ill effects (obviously i also used a water conditioner, had water at the correct temperature, good aeration etc but it was a "one day thing" - i'd still recommend taking your time though

slakey wrote:Okay I'm trying to get free postage here, so I'm looking at things to buy for the tank.

Ferplast BluStart - £9.39
Tetra Fresh Delica Daphnia - £3.89 (anyone tried these?) -
.

yes they are great

I always find it handy to have melafix ready to go if ever i need it

What about the blood worms and brine shrimp aswell?

Melafix okay, anything else?

slakey wrote:What about the blood worms and brine shrimp aswell?

Melafix okay, anything else?

Yeah all the delica stuff is great & i've yet to see any of my fish turn their noses up.

Nothing more i'd add & you should be over the £40 for free postage - if money were no object there are a million things to buy.....

Just got back from a fish shop, bought 5 giant vallis and some Melafix.
Also saw a really nice Male Betta, shrimp and baby kuhli loach *didn't buy any*

Been looking on ebay and found these:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Tetra-Fresh-Delic ... 240%3A1318

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Live-Moss-Balls-C ... 240%3A1318

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/5-Moss-Balls-Live ... 240%3A1318

Should I buy them?

I've used the company in the last link - 5 x moss balls "50p sized" - i reckon this is the best value you'll get - the other ones i have are tennis ball size at £3.99 each.

should I buy the Daphnia from ebay aswell?
What other plants would be good to buy but easy to maintain?

Personally,i only really have anubias & java fern as these are easy, grow on wood/rock & survive my tang conditions. Anubias can be expensive though...

I've already got 3 anubias nana's lol
Java fern hmm okay I'll look them up, what's that Crypt plant?

EDIT: Already got a Java Fern lol, and it's grown soo much since I put it in, it's actually huge!

My priority is the fish in my tanks & consequently i only keep plants that are "very easy" - i've not had any success with crypts.

I'd reccommend you have a look through a website detailing plants & see what you fancy then check if it's available. If keeping it is 'easy', it's a good bet, other than that i personally wouldn't be interested.

Try http://www.tropica.com/default.asp as a good starting point

Just tested the water:

Ammona: 0.25ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm

Just need to get that ammonia down

what's that Crypt plant

Cryptocoryne wendtii is a good one, with the browny green leaves. Attractive and nice and easy to grow.



Whatever you do though, do not purchase any plants until your ammonia/nitrite have settled back to zero and your nitrogen cycle has stabilised.

As I said before, algae will jump on all that ammonia, and your new plants will be festooned in no time.

I suppose best solution to loosing ammonia would be a 50% water change?

it would be interesting to check the measurements of your tapwater before any change.

Reading from tapwater says:

Ammonia: 0.25ppm