Fish Gasping For Air
- Thread starter mpward
- Start date
Hi I posted on your other thread I think the real problem is the fact you have 7ppm ammonia in your water. This is an extremley toxic level and will do serious damage to your fish, your tank is going through the cycling stages and as its an over stocked tank at the moment as well its just making it worse.
You need to do larger water changes than 10% I would probably suggest doing a big one like 70% for now to kind of get your levels all down to 0 or as close as you can and then for the next few weeks do at least one 50% change every day to keep ammonia and nitrite down eventually your filter will colonise with bacteria but its going to take time.
This toxic kind of water is going to make your fish gasp at the surface.
Good luck
Wills
You need to do larger water changes than 10% I would probably suggest doing a big one like 70% for now to kind of get your levels all down to 0 or as close as you can and then for the next few weeks do at least one 50% change every day to keep ammonia and nitrite down eventually your filter will colonise with bacteria but its going to take time.
This toxic kind of water is going to make your fish gasp at the surface.
Good luck
Wills
jacko32
looking for a hard headed woman
7ppm oh no thats not good you could try add an air stone to help things along but you will still need to do large water changes everyday untill the filter kicks in properly
thanks for the replies, its just so weird that its only just started happening after everything being ok for two months, what can cause this?
Ive done about a 40% change in all today.
I`ll let you know how i get on, just hope i dont wake up to another dead fish tomorrow morning.
Thanks.
Mat
Ive done about a 40% change in all today.
I`ll let you know how i get on, just hope i dont wake up to another dead fish tomorrow morning.
Thanks.
Mat
You need to do more LARGE water changes. Like, 70-80% each time and doing those twice a day. 7ppm of ammonia is beyond awful. It is literally like you living in a toilet that is full of faeces, urine and cyanide. It's beyond a bit of a problem. It's even beyond emergency, frankly.
Please stop worrying about the minute details of your fishes behaviour. It just looks like you are looking for a simpler solution than the ones already suggested - there is no simpler solution other than rehoming a LOT of your fish and doing loads of very large water changes.
The fish are gasping because the ammonia is burning their gills and stopping them from getting oxygen and the nitrites are also doing nerve damage and affecting how well they get oxygen from the water.
Why has this suddenly gone bad now? Maybe it hasn't. Have you been testing your water daily, or even weekly, before this happened? Unless you have detailed records of fish behaviour and appearance, fish health and your water quality and unless you can observe them at night you can't really say they've been fine. You can guess that they've been fine but you've got to be honest and say you are really new to this. There could have been (and probably was) a lot of stuff that an experienced fish keeper would have noticed that you didn't. And as I said in the other thread - it sometimes takes one small change for loads of stress and built-up sickness to suddenly get the better of fish.
Please stop worrying about the minute details of your fishes behaviour. It just looks like you are looking for a simpler solution than the ones already suggested - there is no simpler solution other than rehoming a LOT of your fish and doing loads of very large water changes.
The fish are gasping because the ammonia is burning their gills and stopping them from getting oxygen and the nitrites are also doing nerve damage and affecting how well they get oxygen from the water.
Why has this suddenly gone bad now? Maybe it hasn't. Have you been testing your water daily, or even weekly, before this happened? Unless you have detailed records of fish behaviour and appearance, fish health and your water quality and unless you can observe them at night you can't really say they've been fine. You can guess that they've been fine but you've got to be honest and say you are really new to this. There could have been (and probably was) a lot of stuff that an experienced fish keeper would have noticed that you didn't. And as I said in the other thread - it sometimes takes one small change for loads of stress and built-up sickness to suddenly get the better of fish.
Thankyou for all your advice, i really appreciate it, I do, do regular water checks, when i didnt have my own test kit i took the samples to my local pet store and all have been ok, like i said this has only just started happening after two months of testing water, the water has been safe. Im thinking of getting another tank and putting some of the fish in there. I admit i am new to this hobby, but i havent gone into it lighlty, ive reserached as much as i could and got as much advice as i could, that is also why i came on here to keep getting advice as i know i am a beginner to this. Ive kept doing large water changes and i woke up to my fish all happy as ever, im going to keep doing large water changes until my levels settle again, hopefully im on the right course now. I spend hours checking on my fish and watching there behaviour and colour changes etc, please do not be too hard on me Assaye, i appreciate your only trying to help and advise me, and that yes as you are a more expeienced keeper, you probably spot more things than me, im still learning, but i am dedicated and focussed on this hobby, keep advising me, thats why i came on here, but please not too harsh as ive not gone into this hobby lightly.
I am sorry for sounding harsh. I just want you to realise how serious your situation is.
Another reason why this has started happening now is that your fish have grown up and bit and have started producing more waste - perhaps more waste that your filter can handle!
Have you thought about rehoming the unsuitable fish in your tank? It would make your life much easier and be better for the fish.
With regards to setting up another tank - if you can get a bigger tank and split your stock between the two that would be great. You'd still need to rehome the ones that get really big but if you got a 20 gallon tank (so about 90 litres), you could keep much, much more of your stock. However, if you set up a new tank and moved stock straight across you would also get ammonia and nitrite problems in that tank which would mean two tanks that need large daily water changes. You could always do a fishless cycle in the second tank but that means your fish would be in the small tank for an extra month or two.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Agree with the work Assaye is doing here. Re-homing fish is potentially a difficult and uncomfortable job but it will give the quickest the most long lasting benefits. I would regard it as an important project. Find an LFS that will help you with some of these.
Although its true that experienced fishkeepers learn to judge many things by looking at their fish, its also true that if you've been keeping fish less than 4 years or so you really need to be learning along with your test kit results and letting them be the louder warning. To a beginner, fish will often appear to be just fine and yet a major problem can be in the making. Unfortunately, letting an LFS do the tests if often one of the things that gets beginners in trouble - in your case that's in the past now but it was a factor. Any time ammonia gets all the way up to 1.0ppm and certainly above, the good fishkeeper must react with large water changes done via deep gravel cleans with the gravel cleaning siphon. In your case these 75% type water changes are probably going to continue to be needed, although its true as you get it under slightly better control, they may be able to be dropped to 50%. The rotation you want is between what looks like zero ppm or almost, right after the water change, and then 0.25ppm at the max after you've been out of the house for some hours.
Note that the whole thing of performing smaller water changes (like 30% or less) is just a completely different thing.. its something that's done with a mature tank!
~~waterdrop~~
Although its true that experienced fishkeepers learn to judge many things by looking at their fish, its also true that if you've been keeping fish less than 4 years or so you really need to be learning along with your test kit results and letting them be the louder warning. To a beginner, fish will often appear to be just fine and yet a major problem can be in the making. Unfortunately, letting an LFS do the tests if often one of the things that gets beginners in trouble - in your case that's in the past now but it was a factor. Any time ammonia gets all the way up to 1.0ppm and certainly above, the good fishkeeper must react with large water changes done via deep gravel cleans with the gravel cleaning siphon. In your case these 75% type water changes are probably going to continue to be needed, although its true as you get it under slightly better control, they may be able to be dropped to 50%. The rotation you want is between what looks like zero ppm or almost, right after the water change, and then 0.25ppm at the max after you've been out of the house for some hours.
Note that the whole thing of performing smaller water changes (like 30% or less) is just a completely different thing.. its something that's done with a mature tank!
~~waterdrop~~
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