Complete Freak Out Moment

[Bloo]

So i was looking at my tank tonight - thinking I'll give all my fish a real good "once over" to see how they are doing health wise. Difficult in a planted tank with small fish.
I spot one of my little dwarf loaches breathing really heavily - and then I see him "flop over" ! First I thought he's just playing around - until he flopped to the other side.

On closer inspection the corys aren't looking too thrilled either and the other loaches (not as bad as the floppy one) are breathing fairly fast too.

I whip out my pH test and am shocked to see that (what is supposed to be a deep blue pH around 7.2) there's hardly any colour registering in the test tube slight panic !

The CO2 is on night shut off anyway, but I've turned it completely off for now and did a 20% water change - which made very little difference to the test results (it's now a very light shade of green - possibly 6.4 stretching to 6.6 if I'm lucky).

My poor fish my bubble rate must have gone haywire. I just so hope they are all still alive when I see them tomorrow morning - all £150's worth of fish & shrimp - though it's not the money that matters as much as seeing a tank full of fish potentially belly up in the morning

Fingers crossed.....

 

[craynerd]

Sorry to hear bloo! Please update us in the morning!

What causes this?

Chris

 

[zig]

Gosh i wonder what happened, run an airstone and drive off any excess CO2, run an airstone anyway or make the spraybar cause turbulance on the surface of the water, do you think it was the CO2? or any other ideas, Ph 6.4 or 6.6 should be fine, my fish live in Ph 6.2 or 6.4 max, all the time without any problems. sorry to hear that bloo hope everything works out ok, late anxious night for you i would say, check around for shrimp as well they usually climb out of a tank if the chemistry has gone haywire, there might be some on the floor if they had time to escape.

 

[Bloo]

Thanks I refilled my gas bottle on Sunday and reconnected (after letting it reach room temperature again). I've been fiddling with the fine tuning knob (whatever you call it ) to get the bubble rate right. My glass diffuser suddenly isn't working right anymore (or perhaps it's something I've done) and I can't count the bubbles very well. I thought I got it right, but obviously not.

I'll have to spend some time tomorrow on it to see about getting the right bubble rate reading from my glass diffuser - or get a new glass diffuser.

This is the first midnight water change I've ever done.

Gosh i wonder what happened, run an airstone and drive off any excess CO2, run an airstone anyway or make the spraybar cause turbulance on the surface of the water, do you think it was the CO2? or any other ideas, Ph 6.4 or 6.6 should be fine, my fish live in Ph 6.2 or 6.4 max, all the time without any problems. sorry to hear that bloo hope everything works out ok, late anxious night for you i would say, check around for shrimp as well they usually climb out of a tank if the chemistry has gone haywire, there might be some on the floor if they had time to escape.

Thanks Zig - will quickly add airpump as well.

Yeah a low pH is not a problem - but rather the crash. The shrimp look fine though and fish are seemingly OK - apart from the loaches flopping around a bit.

Will update in the morining!

 

[George Farmer]

Sorry to hear Antonet. Have you tested your KH?

 

[Themuleous]

You could always add some bicarb, get the KH up a bit, stop it happening again, well at least for the time being? Cant remember off the top of my head how big your tank is but a teaspoonfull should prob do the trick.

I had this happen once, its really odd and you can for the life of it work out whats happened all of a sudden. Looks like you might have caught it in time thou. Let us know what its like in the morning.

 

[riverman444]

Hope everything balances out. I HATE surprise issues like yours. I always freak out and break stuff.
I poured a whole bucket of water on the floor next to my tank once thinking I was in the kitchen......total brainfart, that was. All caused by a Nitrite spike.

Good luck

 

[craynerd]

Its now AM...let us know !

 

[Luke_e]

Sorry to hear that...
How many fish/shrimp are in the tank, also what size is it?

 

[Bloo]

Thanks everyone ! Panic for now (or at least this morning) over. I've been pumping in air overnight and this morning they "seem" fine. But that said, I had extremely little time this morning (too tired and too little time) but a quick scan reveals that fish and shrimp seem fine and the bright red gills of the loaches seem to have gone down to a more normal colour

Sorry to hear Antonet. Have you tested your KH?

I didn’t test my pH again this morning (will do so when I get home) and completely didn't even think of testing kH. Which in hindsight I really should have done as well. But it was late and not thinking all that straight. I'll test all else as well tonight but the tank is usually rock solid and well over a year old now so I don't generally bother with anything else too much.

Its now AM...let us know !

lol yikes dude I was still sleeping when you wrote that ! but thanks for the early morning concern !