disconcerting. However, going dark is more often a sign of trouble. If the fry is feeding well, actively moving around, interacting with others and the fins are erect, it is probably fine. More than once, aquarists have almost gotten rid of odd colored eggs or fry, only to keep them around and find they had an attractive sport. That is an exciting possibility.
You mentioned that your tap water has a lot of mineral. Unless your guppies are being attacked by a skin parasite or disease (Ich, velvet) you don't need salt in the water. Except when guppies wash downstream to an estuary (in Trinidad), they aren't found in brackish conditions. One of the things maybe distinguishing guppies from Endler's livebearers in the area (Laguna de Patos, Cumana, in northeastern Venezuela) that the Endler's are found in is that they are in very hard water merging into mangrove swamps, which do have some salt in the water. According to collector Armando Poul, a mollie and possible a Limia (?) were found there. Regular guppies aren't found there.
Too much mineral will kill guppies and adding salt can raise the TDS (or ion content) to a lethal level. See Winter Mystery Deaths in Immediate Help or Mollies, Salt and Asian Imports
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2004/1/31/5655/54195
Medically, sodium chloride, irritates the skin of a freshwater fish. A fish's skin, when irritated, produces extra body slime. When the fish is combating a parasite, sometimes that slime buries the parasite. Otherwise, why would we wish to stress the fish that way?
As a photographer, I probably used to be a good softball player. But if you can, set your camera on manual focus. Auto-focus has an annoying tendency to focus on the glass front of the tank, rather than on the fish.
If you can move your camera quite close to the front of the tank and set it on a table or something solid (tripod?), focusing will be easier. If real close to the glass, even the auto-focus may then focus on the fish.
Also, and maybe this is just me, better (or less awful) shots are to be had when one is closer to the fish and doesn't have to use a zoom function to get near them. Maybe someone else can explain why that is.
Miskairal and some non-Guppyloggers I know, are using video cameras and then, with the help of software on their computers, selecting that one frame which really captures the essence of the fish. I have found it almost easier to use the movie function on my digital camera and have to see if I can now pick that apart. Of course, if one just takes or posts a bit of a video, it sucks up memory like crazy and can be a very long down-load for those with dial-up.
And it takes time, that most precious of commodities.
All the best!
unc
So many fish, so many neat people, so little time.
Immediate Help
