Red line on tail fin edge?

I checked on the fish again this morning. The edge of the tail, the red part of which had fallen off to expose a new, non-red edge, well, that was red again. He has switched from floating miserably at the surface to hiding miserably deep within the plants. There is no way that there has been any measurable ammonia concentration since Sunday, which is when I started doing regular large water changes. None of the other fish show signs of illness.

I wish there was some sort of documented progression of ammonia poisoning available. All I can find is that fish either recover or die, but not the progression of symptoms and the phenotype of the disease over time. I don't know if this loss of a red line, gain of tattered fin, and regain of red line is normal or abnormal.

I have two tanks. One is a 10 gallon tank with 1 male guppy (the sick fish I've been talking about so far, with the red line on his fin) and 10-15 female guppies. The other tank is a 55 gallon tank with Elassoma gilberti. A week or so ago a male Elassoma gilberti had a color bleed on his fin. I saw him again today, and he seems fine, and hasn't changed phenotype at all. But I'm wondering if the hemorrhaging of color in that fish's tail is related to the hemorrhaging of blood in this guppy's tail. Is this a pathogen that has infected both of my tanks? Are the Elassoma gilberti about to devolve into the blood hemorrhaging that I'm seeing in the guppy tank? What's going on? I have no idea what to do.

Male guppy, video taken on Sunday: youtube.com/watch?v=hac1_evAkdE
Male Elassoma gilberti, video taken almost two weeks ago: youtube.com/watch?v=D3F4vIXMHg4
Are these related illnesses?

Edited by EricaWieser, 30 November 2011 - 11:14 AM.

If it were ammonia, you would easily see very inflamed burned gills by the time you saw this condition. I can't see any distention of operculum or other obvious sign of severe gill damage in your fish video.

I can't say what the cause is, and am no expert on guppies by far, but am wondering if it is perchance fin nipping that is the initial cause? You mentioned breeding in one of your posts, and perhaps if he can't dance a good dance, they are driving him off?

If it were ammonia, you would easily see very inflamed burned gills by the time you saw this condition. I can't see any distention of operculum or other obvious sign of severe gill damage in your fish video.

I can't say what the cause is, and am no expert on guppies by far, but am wondering if it is perchance fin nipping that is the initial cause? You mentioned breeding in one of your posts, and perhaps if he can't dance a good dance, they are driving him off?

Thank you for the response, and for thinking of something new I've been watching the females, and they've never nipped his fins. Actually, it's odd; none of them are pregnant. That suggests that he hasn't tried to mate with them not only this past week or so, but for several weeks. I guess he hasn't been feeling well in a while. I checked on him this morning. He's got a bit of an appetite back and looks a little bit more comfortable (he swims out in the open now).

The Elassoma gilberti with the color-stroke rubbed himself against the substrate today when I was checking on him. It looks like he's itchy. His tail still looks the same, with the color bleed not growing or shrinking in size.
The Elassoma gilberti also still don't have any fry. I'm not sure if they're sick and not breeding, or if something's killing the fry, or what's going on. There's something wrong.

Edited by EricaWieser, 01 December 2011 - 09:33 AM.

Update:
The red line on the guppy's tail is gone and he ate four grindal worms from the tips of the extended fish tweezers. It's hard watching him eat because he's so bad at it, uncoordinated like a person trying to walk after drinking too much. The other fish all had their fill before I figured out to get the tweezers and hand feed him. He now spends extended periods of time out in the open, swimming around sort of like he's dizzy.

The gulf coast pygmy sunfish is still doing fine with his color hemorrhage. He's still alive and kicking. None of the other fish show signs of hemorrhaging. I'm still unsure what went wrong with these fish, but at least none of them died. Yet.

Edited by EricaWieser, 01 December 2011 - 06:30 PM.

Glad to hear he is doing better.

It's the dreaded Red Line of Death virus, AKA the Terminator virus. It'll be back.

It's great that your fish is feeling better, but could you explain the "red line falling off" a little more? I'm having trouble visualizing it. Is it more like a string (inside completely or outside or some of both)? I know livebearers are prone to camellanus worms but since the offender is on the tail maybe it's some other parasite. I went to a cichlid show some weeks ago and one spectacular Madagascar cichlid (I can't remember what particular species it was) was disqualified since it had three hairlike strings attached to it, one to one pectoral fin and two to its mouth. The conclusion was reached that the poor thing had leeches, but I never knew leeches could be so thin. If you mean the edge of the fin is red like a fish with frayed fins, I suspect it was nipped slightly by a tankmate (perhaps females sick of the attention or males being competitive?) and was unfortunate enough to get a bacterial infection, like others have said. But it still sounds really odd that the edge of the fin would just "fall off"... Is it at all possible to take a picture of the fish?

It's great that your fish is feeling better, but could you explain the "red line falling off" a little more? I'm having trouble visualizing it. Is it more like a string (inside completely or outside or some of both)? I know livebearers are prone to camellanus worms but since the offender is on the tail maybe it's some other parasite. I went to a cichlid show some weeks ago and one spectacular Madagascar cichlid (I can't remember what particular species it was) was disqualified since it had three hairlike strings attached to it, one to one pectoral fin and two to its mouth. The conclusion was reached that the poor thing had leeches, but I never knew leeches could be so thin. If you mean the edge of the fin is red like a fish with frayed fins, I suspect it was nipped slightly by a tankmate (perhaps females sick of the attention or males being competitive?) and was unfortunate enough to get a bacterial infection, like others have said. But it still sounds really odd that the edge of the fin would just "fall off"... Is it at all possible to take a picture of the fish?

Video of him with red edge of fin:


Video of him afterwards:

(I took that video just now)

It's like the red line just fell off or something. It didn't look like a worm or anything, just his fin, red. And now that it's gone the edge of his fin is ragged.

I've never seen the female guppies nip him even once, and I watch them pretty often.

There is a fish tank at work that I kind of want to donate some of my fish to, but I don't want to infect it with anything if this turns out to have been some sort of pathogen. The Elassoma gilberti still doesn't have control over that patch of his tail, and it remains dark blue even when the rest of him is lightened up.

Edited by EricaWieser, 03 December 2011 - 02:00 AM.