Guppies are the most common fish every aquarist prefers to add to their home aquarium. They are hardy fish and can live in a wide range of water parameters.
However, guppies can become prone to various diseases and parasites if kept in bad water conditions and can become weak. Many aquarists face problems like guppy fish getting thin in their guppy-keeping journey. So, Why is my guppy getting thin? Let us find out.
The internal parasite is the primary reason behind guppy fish getting thin. Other reason includes underfeeding, old age, sickness, and feeding low-grade food. Feed high-quality nutritional food appropriately and ensure good living conditions for your guppy fish to prevent such issues.
This article will discuss why guppy fish is getting thin and how we can prevent our guppies from such issues. So, let us get into it.
Contents
Why Is my guppy getting skinny?
There can be various reasons behind your guppy fish getting skinny, of which the internal parasites are the primary reasons.
Other reasons are old age, sickness, underfeeding, and feeding low-grade food to your guppy fish.
You must know that poor water conditions can also make your guppy fish skinny by making them come under stress and prone to various diseases and parasites like camallanus worms.
Guppies are hardy fish that can live in a wide range of water parameters, but guppies can get easily prone to various diseases and parasites if kept in bad water conditions.
Underfeeding your guppy fish or feeding them with low-quality expired food will make them skinny and weak.
Also read: Why Is My Guppy Not Eating?
Is It Normal for a guppy to get thin?
If age is the factor behind your guppy fish getting thin, it is normal, and you cannot do anything to treat it.
Any other reasons behind such issues are not normal, and immediate action is required.
Internal parasites, sickness, underfeeding, and low-grade food are other reasons your guppy fish gets skinny.
If not treated early, your guppy fish can pass away or suffer from a critical condition.
What are the reasons behind my guppy fish getting thin?
These all can be the reason behind your guppy fish getting thin:
- Internal parasites
- Old age
- Sickness
- Lack of high-quality nutritional food
- Underfeeding
- Poor water conditions
Internal parasite
Internal parasites like camallanus worms can be the reason behind your guppy fish getting thin.
Parasites like camallanus worms are not easy to detect. However, you will notice red, thread-like worms attached to the anus of your guppies in the advanced stages of such parasites.
Other symptoms include intestinal bloating, refusing to eat, and the presence of waste and leftovers in the aquarium.
If your guppy fish carry these symptoms, they are infected with camallanus worms.
Antihelminthic medications are essential for treating camallanus worms.
Make sure to clean the substrate of your guppy’s aquarium after 24 hours of treating the aquarium with medications to remove all the dead worms.
Also, these medications are toxic for invertebrates like snails and shrimps, so remove them from the aquarium before performing the treatment.
These internal parasites are contagious and can spread all over the aquarium, infecting all the fishes present in the aquarium.
So, we recommend treating all the fish rather than separating the sick guppy in a hospital tank and treating them separately.
Old age
Guppy fish’s old age can also be the reason behind getting thin.
If you have the sick guppy fish for more than 1-2 years in your aquarium, the age is why the guppy fish gets skinny.
This is natural, and you cannot do anything to cure your sick guppy fish.
Sickness
Sickness is another common reason behind your guppy fish getting thin.
There can be various causes behind your guppy fish getting sick such as stress, poor water condition, bacteria and parasites, and feeding on expired foods.
A sick guppy will get skinny because of the disease and high-stress levels.
Also, sick guppy will not get able to eat much, making them weak and skinny.
Lack of high-quality nutritional food
Feeding low-grade food to your guppy fish can also make them thin.
Food plays a major role in keeping your guppy fish healthy and ensuring their longer lifespan.
If you feed expired food or food that doesn’t have high nutritional value, it will affect your guppy fish, and they can become skinny.
Guppy fish require various meat and plant matter food to ensure their ideal dietary requirements.
Feeding them one type of food and low-grade food will affect their health, and they can become skinny.
Underfeeding
Usually, every aquarist tries not to overfeed their guppies.
Guppies are always hungry, which means that whenever you serve food to them, they will feed on them whether they are hungry or not.
Such eating behaviour of guppies confuses us, and we overfeed our guppies.
But this same behaviour can also make us underfeed our guppies.
Underfeeding guppy fish can also make them look thin.
Also read: How Often Should You Feed Guppies?
Poor water conditions
Poor water conditions can also be the reason behind your guppy fish getting thin.
Bad water quality will make your guppy fish come under stress.
Guppy fish under stress for a long time will become prone to various diseases and parasites like camallanus worms.
Also, your guppy fish will lose its appetite and will become weak.
All these will result in your guppy fish getting skinny.
Also read: Can Guppy Survive In Muddy Water?
How to prevent my guppy fish from getting thin and weak?
Ensure these things to prevent your guppy fish from getting thin and weak:
- Feed your guppy fish high-quality nutritional food.
- Make sure not to underfeed your guppy fish.
- Provide your guppy with good water conditions.
- Ensure adequate water parameters for your guppy fish.
- Detect and treat the issues at the early stages of your guppy fish suffering from disease or infection.
- Isolate the new fish before adding it to your home aquarium.
Feed high-quality nutritional food.
Food plays a major role in keeping your guppy fish healthy and ensuring their longer lifespan.
If you feed low-grade food to your guppy fish, they will become weak and prone to various diseases and parasites.
Consider feeding high-quality nutritional food to your guppy fish to avoid such issues.
Feed your guppy fish flake food, veggie pellets, daphnia, and other live foods.
Also, feed your guppy fish blanched vegetables like zucchini and cucumber to fulfil their plant-based nutritional requirement.
Also read: Best Food For Guppy Fish.
Make sure not to underfeed guppy fish.
Guppy fish are always hungry and will eat every time you serve food to them, whether they are hungry or not.
With such eating behaviours, owners get confused and end up overfeeding their guppies.
Overfeeding your guppies can make them suffer from issues like constipation and bloating.
But, underfeeding can also do worse to your guppy fish by making them weak and skinny.
So, to ensure that you are not underfeeding or overfeeding your guppy fish, provide them food in a quantity that they can finish eating in one to two minutes.
If your guppy fish is eating the food in seconds, you are underfeeding them and increase the quantity next time.
Also read: How To Know If Guppy Is Hungry?
Good water conditions
Providing your guppy fish with good water conditions will help you prevent such issues.
To ensure good water conditions, perform a 30-35% weekly water change to keep the water clean for excessive waste.
Add a good filtration system with bio media to keep the water clean and safe from harmful toxins like ammonia and nitrite.
Plenty of live aquatic plants will also help you keep the water clean and oxygenated.
Adequate water parameters
Ensuring adequate water parameters will keep your guppy fish healthy.
Also, guppy fish will mostly avoid eating when being in inadequate water parameters and will become skinny due to stress and lack of food.
To provide your guppy fish with adequate water parameters, ensure all these things:
- Provide your guppy fish with a water temperature between 72-82 °F. (Consider adding a heater in your guppy tank to ensure stable water temperature)
- Ensure the water pH level is between 6.8 and 7.8.
- Your guppy water’s ammonia and nitrite level should be at 0 ppm and nitrate below 25 ppm.
Treat the issues at the early stages.
There are lots of problems from which your guppy fish can suffer.
Guppies are hardy fish and can live in a wide range of water parameters, but many bacterias and diseases can affect your guppy fish’s health.
So, whenever you notice any unusual behaviour change in your guppy fish, immediately find the reason behind it and treat the issue.
Isolate the new fish before adding it to your home aquarium.
New fish and invertebrates can carry internal parasites like camallanus worms and infect the whole aquarium.
Also, many contagious bacteria and parasites can transfer from one fish to the whole aquarium.
So, to ensure that the new fish is healthy and doesn’t contain any bacteria and parasites, you should isolate them first.
Isolating the new livestock for one to two weeks will help you detect if any issues are going with them.
If you find any problems, treat them with proper medication.
You can introduce them to your home aquarium when you are sure the new batch of fish and invertebrates are healthy and contain no bacteria and parasites.
What are the signs of an unhealthy guppy fish?
There are two types of signs to look for to detect if your guppy fish is unhealthy:
- Behavioural signs
- Physical signs
Behavioural signs
All these are the behavioural signs of an unhealthy guppy fish:
- Floating at the top of the tank
- Sitting at the bottom
- Struggling to maintain its buoyancy
- Avoiding to eat
- Showing strange swimming patterns
- Hiding most of the time
- Struggling to breathe
- Rubbing against plants, rocks, and glass.
All these are the behavioural signs that your guppy fish will show when suffering from sickness or other issues.
If you find your guppy fish showing any or more than one sign stated above, look for the issue and try to detect it and solve it asap.
Most of the time, water parameters and conditions are the reasons for your guppy fish suffering from issues.
Physical signs
All these are the physical signs that your guppy fish will show when it is unhealthy:
- White spots on fins and body
- Bulging belly
- Guppy has red gills
- Losing colour and getting pale
- Guppy fish appear skinny
- Black or red dots around the body
Your guppy is suffering from sickness if showing such signs.
The common cause of such issues is inadequate water parameters, ammonia spikes, stress, and poor water conditions.
Conclusion:
There are various reasons behind your guppy fish getting thin, of which the internal parasites are the primary reason.
Internal parasites like camallanus worms can make your guppy fish weak and skinny.
Other reasons include sickness, underfeeding, age, and feeding low-grade food to your guppy fish.
Proper medication is required for treating internal parasites.
Feeding your guppy fish high-quality food, feeding them appropriately, and providing good water condition is essential to prevent such issues.
Reference: ScienceDirect, NCBI, CABI