I have a 55 gallon tank. In it live 8 skirted tetras, 1 pleco, 5 zebra danios, and 3 little "mini" plecos (I forget their name), and 5 rag tail platies.

All my fish look great, and live peacefully. They are well fed and all of my tank testing is good. For some reason, however...my guppies always die. This last time, I bought 8 females and 3 males. They were all beautiful (especially the males). They all died within a week. It started with two dead...which I took as being too stressed during acclimation...but now all are gone 8 days later. Does anyone know the cause? I never noticed any of the other fish "picking at" or "going after" the guppies. Most deaths occurred at night. My lighting is on a timer and the fish get roughly 13.5 hours of light...maybe a tad more. If anyone can assist I would gladly accept the help. All I get from the pet stores is "it most be the PH, or guppies are just fragile".

I should note that I have been an aquarist for years, with guppies being one of my favorites I have had them, in the past, living years, with breeding and raising several fry. I just can't figure out what is going on!

Also the tank temp is at 73-74. PH is between 6.8 and 7.2 which I understand is a good level to accommodate most fish. Also, before I worried about PH and all the other crap I never had fish die...now that I am trying to have everything just perfect I just run into trouble.

Thanks in advance!

I've been told guppies need fairly hard water to survive well. Whats your KH and GH?
This page helps reaffirm this. give it a look: Freshwater Livebearers; Guppies, Mollies, Platties, Swordtails, Endlers

guppies like warmer water. I have guppies, balloon mollies and peppered cory and my tank is always between 79 and 82. Guppies are more active in warmer water, in colder water they tend to group together at the surface and don't swim much. raise the temp of your tank and they should get better. also make sure they have plenty of plants to hide in, when they get nervous or scared they like to hide. and when the females birth they like to hide in plants. Not sure why they are dieing, what are your water parameters? besides PH? have you tried going to a different fish store?

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Tank: 29g:guppies, balloon mollies, swordtail, 2 mollies
Hex: opaline gourami
10g 1F. betta

It really sounds like you're doing everything right. At this point PH matters little, Guppies have been out of the river for so long they don't care about PH anymore, and will adapt.
I would suggest buying them from a different location. The probability is there that you were sold sick fish from the get.

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Chris Baez, Jr.
Lakeland, FL.

"The problem with Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult and left untried"