The Day After a Water Change

[dntx5b9]

I have now noticed this twice. I do big water changes (about 70 to 80%) every three days in my 90G tank. The last two or three times I did the water change (in the evening), I noticed that all my fish at the top of the water in the morning, like there is no O2 or something. Then, the next day, everything is fine. I am puzzled by all this. I did detect ammonia in my tap water few weeks ago, and have been treating the water with the Prime during the water change. What could be causing this? I remember seeing one thread that similar thing happened after a water change. Any idea? No, I do not have an airstone. May be I need to get one. May be this is related to the weather getting hot here in US. It's summer here. :wink:

[scott bowler]

hi dntx5b9 is the water temp the same in the water that you change to your tank? also if the water temp is high you need to put air stone in the hotter the water the less oxygen so IMO you should put 1 in. also do you age your water ?

[dntx5b9]

I do my best to keep the new water the same temp as the tank water. The tank is at 86F. No, I do not age the water. I haven't had this problem before and couple of months ago, the temp was set at 88F. It's strage because this is a new problem. The fish seem fine this morning. Don't know what to make out of it. May be the tap water doesn't have enough O2? Would that be possible?

[ILLUSN]

you really should age your water if your going to do a BIG change like that, tap water has all kinds of nasties in it, the the dechlorinator needs time to lock up, your fish are probably going into mild shock with each change. also tap water strait from the tap is super oxygenated (as it mixes with aircomming out of the tap). the excess disolved gasses can cause swim bladder problems making it hard for your fish to swim right, if this happens too often they can get infections of the swim bladder.

[dntx5b9]

I can't really age the water. May be I can do 50% water changes every other day, or do 50% every three days. As my little guys are getting bigger, may be I can reduce the amount I change everytime?

[axl]

Hey,
i have a 115g tank and at the moment i do 2 x 30% a week and they are growing very fast. I dont age my water either i just makesure the tap water is warm and a double dose of seachem prime. The tank never goes below 30 degrees doing it this way. Also once a week i syphoon all the left over food and droppings out so the tank stays crystal clear. Axl

[dntx5b9]

That's good to know. How many discus do you have in the tank and what other fish do you have?

[axl]

At the moment i have 13 discus in there all ranging in different sizes my biggest would be around 11cm. I also have 30 rummy nose, catfish and bristlenose and you should add some airstones to the tank as well. I run 2 airstones 1 in each corner and you can hardly see them breathing, thats how relaxed they are in there apart from tea time and there breathing gets a little quicker.

[samir]

do smaller water changes. what is your ph ?

[nicholas76]

if you cant age your water then do several small ones per week

reduce from 50% to say 2 x 25%


if that fails cut it back again.

[ILLUSN]

sorry dntx5b9 miseed the new post, as everyone else is aying do smaller changes, id suggest 10% -20% daily as you clean the waste and uneaten food from the tank.

[dntx5b9]

if you cant age your water then do several small ones per week

reduce from 50% to say 2 x 25%


if that fails cut it back again.

Hi, fails meaning what? I am putting an airstone in to see whether that would make a difference. Please be reminded that this happened just a couple of times. I am doing a water change tonight, so will see what happnes tomorrow morning.

[nicholas76]

fails - meaning if you still have issues after reducing w/c

[Merrilyn]

Is this a heavily planted tank.

As you already know, warm water holds less oxygen that cooler water, so a lack of oxygen is a very real possibility.

The other thing you may not know, is that whilst plants give off oxygen during the day, at night they actually take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. If your tank is heavily planted, or if you are using a CO2 system, that would be enough to tip the scales.

Putting an airstone in the tank will solve that problem.

[dntx5b9]

Not heavily planted, but I have few plants in it. No CO2 system. Yes, I was also thinking about photosynthesis process. I bought an airpump and hopefully that will help things out. Did a water change last night and this morning, fish weren't gasping for air. It was a cooler night last night, so may that's why.... Who knows.