breathing heavy but the tank is oxygenated?

[Nathan]

hey guys over the last few days ive noticed a few neons have been at the surface, but no other fish seemed bothered so ididnt think much of it, but today a neon an rummynose has died an all the fish are bretahing really heavily.

now the thing is my spray bar has been placed so that there is thousands of bubbles goin in the water, and i also added an airstone about 6 hours ago and turned the co2 off, and still no change.

can anyone help?

[seecuta]

heavy breathing and hanging around the surface all seems like symptoms of ammonia. ill do an immediate water change


hope that helps

[Bill T.]

If it is ammonium, next question - why have you got an ammonium problem? What are your water parameters anyway? Any other fish breathing fast?

[Nathan]

just did a water change an ill add some amtrite down, thanx for the help

[Diamond]

before the neons started breathing on the surface, did you do water change before?If so when? Did you add any form of fertilisers?Was your bucket clean if you did do water change?
Did you clean your filter out just before this happened?

Did you introduce any new fish?if so how long ago?

[Nathan]

bill i think the ammonia was from a peice of food that was under the log which i didnt see, could that have caused it?

diamond i did add fertiliser just some seachem flourish. my bucket was clean, i make sure i clean it out with scalding water everytime before i use it to put water in the tank (and i use this bucket for only my discus tank). i havnt introduced any new fish, and i didnt clean my filter. only 1 neon was at the top before the water change, and then that night all the fish including discus seemed really happy and were swimmin around fine an breathin normally, but then a couple days later they were breathin heavily

[Nathan]

ive done a few water changes an have been treating with amtrite down and still they seem to be breathing quite heavily, any suggestions on what i can do?

There is still a bit of ammonia in the water, am i doing the best thing to get rid of ammonia?

[Bill T.]

Nathan, how much is a bit?
I would keep up with the water changes untill the ammonium is all gone.
If for some reason your biological filter has crashed, it will take a while to re-establish. You might also get a nitrite spike. I would take daily readings until the crisis is over.
A small bit of food shouldn't lead to a major ammonium problem, some, but not major.
I don't know what amtrite is - never heard of it.
It would be useful to add some cycle, or nitrivec, daily for a while to help re-establish your biological filter.
The question remains - what happened to cause an ammonium spike?
I gues it could take your fish a while to recover, depending on how badly they have been injured.

[sammigold]

I had a similar thing happen in my guppy tank all my guppies were breathing heavily at top of tank and all congregated in one section of the tank and I thought it was nitrite/ammonia poisoning...

on testing my water I had no ammonia but I did have a really really high KH reading of about 8 when normally its sits on around 3-4...

I did 2 x 30% w/c and 1 x 50% w/c over a period of about 9 hours until my water specs were back to "normal" then added an airstone and 1 teaspoon of cooking salt per 40 litres, turned off light and left them for the night.... next morning they were much better... I only lost one guppy in the end, I had feared I would lose them all....

I would continue to do w/c until all ammonia is out of the water and keep very close observation...

I have read that salt can help as the chemicals in it help to neutralise the effects of nitrite poisoning as well as the added airstone to encourage more circulation of oxygen in the tank....

I have also read that the carbon dioxide exchange from plants at night can cause a spike in your tank as it reacts with the nitrites causing some sort of toxic reaction....I will try and find the article and post the link....

hth...

[Nathan]

thanx sammigold, well i just got home and have found one of my golden sucking cats is dead, an the discus looks pretty bad. im going to do another 50% water change in a moment.

i dont have a gh or kh testing kit which i will probly buy sometime on the weekend or next week.

thank you for the help, ill continue with the water changes and add the salt.