Swollen Bellies After Water Change

[kristins1877]

OK I did my weekly water change as I always do on Sundays. Gravel vac and about 25% water change, added declor and leaf zone for the plants after. Everytime I do a cleaning I rearrange the plants and rocks, clean the debris from the filter intakes. Now, about an hour after, I notice that many of my fish (my angels, gourami and my male ram) have swollen bellies and are lethargic. The angels are swimming slowly, the gourami is gasping (but still swimming) and my ram is hovering at the top. What could have happened? Could they have swallowed alot of air bubbles?

40 gallon tank, My water tested right before change was:
PH 7.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
(No nitrate reading)

 

[WILDER]

Any chemicals gotten into the tank during the water change.
Did you match temp of tank during the water change,
Fed them anything since the water change.
Was there alot of small bubbles on plants or ornaments in the tank after the water change.
Any snow or road works near where you live.

 

[TigerIssey]

How long has the tank been set up?
Is the substrate gravel or sand?
What brand dechlor are you using, do you always add dechlor and ferts at same time.
Have you checked the temperature of the tank?
Have you fed blood worm recently?
Have you introduced any fish or plants recently?
What is your stocking

EDIT

Do you have alot of live plants?
Have you changed food recently?
What is you KH?
Can you restest pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate
Do you dose declorinator at level for chlorine or for chloramine?
Do you boil water to bring waterchange water up to temperature?

 

[WILDER]

Do you have plenty of aeration in the tank.
Any sign of flicking and rubbing.
How often do you move ornaments to vac.
Just lift the lid on the tank and tell us what the water smells like.
Are scales sticking out on the fish.
Can the fish maintain there balance in the water.

 

[kristins1877]

no chemicals except leaf zone and dechlor - TOPFIN Tap water dechlorinator (just bought today, ran out, usually use stress coat used new dechlor on fry tank today as well and no problems)
temp was matched as close as possible to touch - @80 degrees F
I fed a small amount of flake before posting just to see if they were interested in eating
ALOT of small bubbles on plants after refilling
No road work here but just had a big snow thaw the past 2 days, closest main road that uses salt on the ice is about 3 blocks away
Tanks has been set up for about 8 months
Using gravel for substrate
Always use fert and a declor at the same time before
I feed dried bloodworm everyother day (for the puffers) along with flake and sinking wafers
Last new fish added was male ram, 4 corys and snail about 2 weeks ago (all fine til today)
aeration good (running 2 HOB filters)
No flicking, rubbing
I move ornaments and plants every gravel vac (every Sunday)
Smell of water: normal - just like fish water...no chemical smell
No scales sticking out
Balance seems ok except ram and gourami. Seems to drift to one side and then rebalance

Stocking:

3 glass catfish
1 powder blue gourami
1 honey gourami
3 german blue rams
2 molly
1 platy
2 medium angels
3 juv angels (quarter size bodies)
1 baby BN Plec
2 synodontis
7 corys
2 dwarf puffers
2 snails
(I think I remembered them all)

The gourami seems to be swimming better now, isn't gasping as bad. The ram is very pale and is at the top of the tank behind the filter intake

 

[WILDER]

Quite a lot of fish for a 40 gallons.
Freeze dried foods cause constipation and swim bladder problems, I wouldn't feed them more than twice a week.
Need to introduce some frozen foods and veg into there diet. Daphnia is very good for digesting a fish food.
Also dwarf puffers should be kept in a tank of there own.
When you have bad weather is best to double the declorinator.
The gills on the fish that heavy breathing do they look pale with excess mucas, or red and inflamed.
The fish that laboured breathing is it also bloated,as bloating can cause fish to labour breath.
I wouldn't feed the fish for aday, and maybe try some shelled peas.

 

[kristins1877]

Thanks Wilder. Yes I know Im definately overstocked. When all of my fry have been rehomed i plan to set the fry tank up for my mollies and platy, and I am working on the hubby to let me have a 55 gal. as well. I tried some fresh zuchini and they weren't interested but Im going to try some peas the day after tomorrow as well as get some frozen foods to add. Their gills look good on all the fish, so I will watch them over the next day.

 

[TigerIssey]

Did you dose the water for chlorine amount or chloramine amount?

 

[kristins1877]

I did it for chlorine. Im still in the learning process, so Im embarressed to say that I dont even know what chloramine is, but the bottle says for chlorine, chloramine and all heavy metals. Use 1ml for every 10 gallons.

 

[TigerIssey]

Does the bottle tell you to use a larger amount for neutralising chloramine caompared to the dosage for chlorine?

 

[kristins1877]

no it has one general instruction: 1 ml per 10 gallons.

 

[TigerIssey]

I use Nutrafin aqua plus and for chloramine removal it doubles the amount. Due to the fact that you have had a huge snow defrost in the area, I (and Wilder) believe that during certain environmental conditions, that the water companys increase the chlorine / chloramine concentrations. Try doubling the dose on your water conditioner, it will not do any harm, chloramine does not dissipate in the same way that chlorine does. My conditioner also says you can double the dose if you have sick or injured fish. Chloramine in the water may well have explained the gasping that you described earlier. The fact your tank is overstocked would mean the fish were in more danger of competing for oxygen. Do you have an airstone running on the tank? If not can you increase the aeration at all??

There may be other environmental poisons that have got into your water following the thaw. Put some activated carbon into the filter but just for a couple of days.

Keep us posted on how you get on, there may be some bacterial infection present aswell, however we will see how the fish are once you have sorted this out. We don't want to treat a tank unnecessarily.

 

[Tolak]

Never trust your water supplier when it comes to aquatics. They provide a wonderful product for human consumption, but will increase additives to keep it safe. This can be rough on fish.

Topfin dechlorinator will give you ammonia when it splits the chlorine/ammonia bond in chloramine. It is nothing more than sodium thiosulfate & distilled water. You can make a gallon of this yourself for about $4.

If you have chloramine, which is probable, you want a dechlorinator that deals with ammonia as well. While your bio filtration will take care of the excess ammonia in time, during this time your fish are exposed to ammonia. This can be a major problem during times your water supplier increases additives.

Tetra Aquasafe or Seachem Prime are two of the more widely available dechlorinators out there. I don't see how they state their product can remove heavy metals, when there is no EDTA added, just sodium thiosufate, sodium carbonate to stabilize pH, and water. http/www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752208

 

[kristins1877]

Yup Tolak, thats exactly what I bought and to be honest, not a fan right now. It may just be coincidence with the thaw and the additives and such, but with my other stuff I never had a problem. I witheld the food or a day, and all swollen bellies are back to normal but my male ram never got his color back and I lost him this afternoon I think I may hold off on my next water change by a day or two this week - we are in a major thaw right now but are due to have a freeze and heavy snow ove the weekend so maybe the city water quality will improve when the snow stops melting... Either way, im going to go back to my stress zyme.

 

[TigerIssey]

Thats a shame. Unfortunately rams are very sensitive to water quality, and not just ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. They are also sensitive to Chlorine, chloramine and any other environmental poisons.

I think I may hold off on my next water change by a day or two this week - we are in a major thaw right now but are due to have a freeze and heavy snow ove the weekend so maybe the city water quality will improve when the snow stops melting... Either way, im going to go back to my stress zyme

If you have never had a problem before, this is a sensible decision. Such a shame about your Ram. Kepp us posted. Hope all the others make it through.

Tina