breathing rapidly

[lpiasente]

My discus are breathing quite rapidly. They don't usually do this. I did a waterchange today. After testing my water paras are all good except the nitrates are at 10 and usually are at 5. ( A little over feeding, smack smack) :oops: :oops: Would this be causing the breathing?

[Boyam]

symptoms of ammonia and nitrate poisoning are nearly the same heavy breathing and occasionally the fish will swim very erratically. when the fish swims erratically this is normally when it is too late- right before it dies.

[lpiasente]

There is no ammonia or nitrite readings. They are all looking in perfect condition it is just they are breathing fast and haven't done this before unless I had a sick one. I will do another water change today and see.

[Boyam]

After testing my water paras are all good except the nitrates are at 10 and usually are at 5. Would this be causing the breathing?

If your parameters are good now(no longer 10) i wouldn't think there is much more you could do besides trying to induce more Oxygen into the system. and keep your water changes up.

also, keep in mind the warmer the water the less oxygen it can sustain- make sure your heater is correctly tuned and or adjusted.

[lpiasente]

heaters are at 31 but water temp on 3 thermometers is 29 and is mostly stable at that but with the colder weather it is dropping overnight to 28. I suppose I will just keep an eye on them. Once again I say I think I worry more about these discus than I did my own babies. :lol:

[bartek]

How are the gills working and do they look ok. No slimy substance, redness etc.

May be gill fluke.

[lpiasente]

I have done a bit over a 50% water change again today and nitrates are down to 5. Gills are flapping away madly still. They have been treated for gill flukes. I changed the wool in one of the filters last wekend and gave the filter a good clean in treated water. My big lepoard is currently laying eggs over the filter pipe and she has 2 males fighting over who is going to be the father so it musn't be anything too bad.

[lpiasente]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxfITDW3UEs&feature=channel_page

[lpiasente]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxfITDW3UEs&feature=channel_page

Not all the fish are doing this. Could it be gill fluke or do you think something else is stressing them?

[Boyam]

pretty fish- they look healthy and they don't look stressed to me.

The fish is breathing pretty quickly but i wouldn't worry too much. i think the normal rep would be 1-2 gill movements a sec. so long they are breathing even on both sides i don't think they have flukes.

I had a problem once similar to this and it was my heater. in the sump the heater had such good flow that it made my tank a few degrees warmer- especially near the surface with the lights during the day.

Also, how many fish do you have in the tank and what is its size?

[lpiasente]

its 450 litre. I am not over stocked. I do 3 x 190litre water change each week.I was getting a little excited with the feeding. Last weekend I did change the filter wool and clean it out pulled all the rocks out and gave a good clean out from under them, there was some food stuck under there so that didn't help.Thanks she is a beautiful fish and I would hate to lose her that is why I worry so much. She has recently been laying and there is some competition between a stunning lepoard snake skin with the same colouring as her and a heckle. I am waiting for my brother to finish with his rearing tank so with his help I can breed these 2 as I am sure they will have some beautiful babies. So thanks for your help. I can actually move away from the tank and stop worrying (well not so much). Off shopping to Melbourne for LIVE food. I love my fish :D

[Boyam]

I don't think you need to worry at all- if shes laying most likely they are fine. sometime i females, not sure about males get a little breathy while breeding. so i have heard anyway.

[lpiasente]

I remembered I started adding dino pee and dino spit for plant ferts. I wonder if that bothered them??

[Boyam]

i have no clue on that one, possible though!

[lpiasente]

They are still breathing like this. I have even upped the water changes including a 20 - 25 % water change on the days I am not doing the 190 litre. We tested the gh today and it is at 11 drops could that cause them to breathe heavily. I have some peat that I could add to the filter if that would help bring the gh down. There is no overstocking no major fighting to cause stress. I do feed up to 6 times a day but I remove any leftovers if there ever is any. They still do look well, eat well and I did have that one die them other day but funny enough she wasn't one of the heavy breathers. Stumped!!

ph 6.5
temp 29
ammonia 0 nitrite 0
nitrate 10

[lpiasente]

Stopped the ferts right away but I have changed from using ph down (costing a fortune) to using hydrochloric acid about a month ago. My tap water is ph 9 so I have to bring it down.

[lpiasente]

I am waiting for my brother to finish with his rearing tank so with his help I can breed these 2 as I am sure they will have some beautiful babies. So thanks for your help. (quote from above)

Who wrote that? I must have been drinking. I wish I had the time to breed these 2. :lol:

[swingn]

...I changed the wool in one of the filters last wekend and gave the filter a good clean in treated water. ...

If you are washing out your filter media, you should be using tank water (IE - Tank water removed during a water change).

Sometimes giving your filter matter a real thorough clean can do more harm then good. I was cleaning my filter media on a fairly regular basis as I thought it was the right thing to do, but I realised it was causing various fluctuations within the tank. So now I only do when absolutely necessary.

Just for info, I have an all in one tank, & the wet dry filters the use can get clogged up over time.

[lpiasente]

I was watching them for gill fluke signs and they were doing a couple of things that were signs of flukes. I was hesitant to use the pp as I worried I would do something wrong and kill my fish. Recently my brother was reading Andrew Sohs book and read that chloramides not removed properly in the water can cause rapid breathing. I had been adding extra prime to the water before aging it but then I got a dropper bottle and started adding the right amount so maybe I needed the extra prime to remove the chloromides????? I have stared adding double dose again. Two of them are still breating heavy but not as much as they were. I will just see how they go.( really trying to avoid pp if I can). I have 3 filters in the tank, 2 x 2217 and a box filter ( this collects the poop beautifully). The 2217 get cleaned about every 3 months and the poop collector every week.

[lpiasente]

After talking to my lps he told me that the local water supply had just recently started adding chloromides to our water. I did get a letter in the mail last year and thought it was happening then. So maybe it does make sense??

[Old Dave]

pH 9?? I thought 7.6 was tough. Chloromides?
Scary stuff.

It might be time to do a little research on Reverse Osmosis filtration??

Anyone know if there is a way to check for chloromides in the water after the ager has been added?

HTH,

Old Dave