Pregnant guppy dying?

Hi

I think my pregnant guppy is dying. This happened before with one of my pregnant females. She is twisting on the bottom of the tank. Nose first into the gravel. Any Ideas?

 

Update: I've put her in one of those plastic surface breeding tanks and she seems to be a little calmer. Still not sure what's going on.

 

Hi MarcHawke!

I haven't had specific experience where a guppy female would twist at the bottom of the tank and nose into the gravel, however I have had pregnant females die during birth. A big factor is obviously stress, depending on the other tankmates. As we know how prolific guppies are at breeding (they literally NEVER stop hehe) what I found is that the poor female would be trying to give birth, but then the males would keep trying to breed and mate with her.

I think putting her on her own would definitely be the best bet. What I usually do is put the female in one of the breeding traps with a lot of small plastic plants in. This serves to firstly let her "de-stress" and gives shelter from the other fish, and then also for the new born babies to hide in. Even with the breeding trap, I always watch my females gives birth and only +- 3 out of 40 babies that are born would go through the little slit to the other compartment. But now that I put just a few floating plants, all babies can safely hide without being eaten by mommy

Good luck, hope she survives and hope you get plenty babies!

 

@Hilligenn - Thanks for the response. They are in a female only tank but still, maybe all the females are stressing her. I think I will add a few plants to the trap, as suggested.

 

Well my guppy died about an hour after my last post so I will start a new one for diagnosis...