red gills/dead fish

[jwlzhills]

Need help. I have a 10 gallon tank that has been through a fishless cycle. 3 weeks ago added 4 zebra danios ( 2 black, 2 yellow), 3 guppies, and 1 algae eater. All fine until 4 days ago. Lost 2 guppies and thought it might be due to weak fish. Now one of the yellow danios is looking weak and small, wasting away to nothing. Eats very little if at all. Can see red through his body at gills. Mini penguin filter and an air stone. Gills on other fish red also but not from outside.

Ammonia 0.0
Nitrites 0.0 to 02.5
Nitrates < 40
PH 7.2
Water temp 78

Fish were bought at Wal-Mart.

 

[FroggyFox]

Could be the fish themselves were already weak...

Why dont you do a water change andsee if you can get those nitrates down a little more? maybe under 20? Could be a trigger for stress. Do you dechlorinate your water? Sometimes the red gills can be from something foreign in the water irritating them... You should try feeding them something other than the flake you usually feed...see if that perks them up at all?

 

[fishdude07]

red gills could mean gill flukes...then again they were bought at walmart...i dont trust walmart...my fish always die fast from there.

 

[Allen Chi]

if u could, avoid walmart fish. I saw one that had a 10 gallon filled with 200+ small comet goldfish. about 20 were dead, and everyone else were nibbling at the corpses...eww

 

[wayne]

Red gills are suspicious. Ammonia spike (likely not), chlorine? Done any water changes?