Urgent Help! Fish Swimming Slanted

[KrazyTurbo]

My clown and chormis started swimming slightly slanted about an hour ago. They seem fine and will still eat food although they are swimming slanted when they are not moving around.

I ran tests and the water is "ok" I would not say conditions are "perfect"

PH 8.0 (slowly adding buffer to get to 8.3)
Nitrite less than .3mg/l
Ammonia slightly less than .25 mg/l
Temp 78
Salinity is in the green area (somewhere between 024 and 028)

Any Idea what's going on or is it normal for them to do this?

My hermit's hard at work and my sandsift star is doing nothing as usual, but he'll move pretty fast if i shine a flashlight on him so neither of them are doing anything unusual.

 

[Whyme]

How long has your tank been up and running

I really think that your tank has not finished cycling yet.

 

[KrazyTurbo]

6+ months.

I bought the tank used.

Test this morning indicated that all the bad things in the water have lowered (nitrite, ammonia, etc)

Fish "seemed" better.

I cleaned the meshy sponge filter elements last night, simply ran some water through them and squeezed them untill the junk stopped comming out.

Could my lighting be doing this? It's been rather hot in my house the last 2 days and the lights have been off about 19 hours and on 5 hours.


Any other ideas?

 

[SkiFletch]

hummm, what means are you using to measure salinity/specific gravity? And more importantly has it been recently verified against a known source? Often times our salinity measuring devices can drift over time, so its imperative to check yours out.

As for the pH, 8.0 is fine for a fish only. Stop blindly adding buffer as you can cause more problems than you're trying to solve if you do so incorrectly.

Do you skim?

 

[KrazyTurbo]

Skimmer is not connected at the moment.

My meter for SG/Salinity is brand new, it's the float kind that you drop in the tank then read where it intersects with top of water.

Im not really blindly adding buffer, I drop a tiny tiny spoonful in the fuge every 6 hours or so slowly brining it up.

Should I connect the skimmer? It's a fission nano skimmer. I can add it in but it would mean removal of bio balls and ceramic beads and maybe relocate the charcoal bag. Should I do that? I may just put the skimmer in-tank untill I get this situation fixed then consider relocation or do my out of tank skimmer mod. I could maybe even mount this in my coolar tank or my external fuge but the fuge isnt completely done.

I will post their condition later tonight when I get home, hopefully they are fine.

 

[SkiFletch]

If you ask me, a big water change is more effective than some of those nano skimmers. Low contact time

Hope they're doing ok

 

[steelhealr]

Either your tank is not cycled or it is recycling. A nano tank doesn't need bioballs and ceramics. Buffer shouldn't be added to the tank. It should be premixed and added. A lot of boo boos going on here. Any more info? I suggest you invest in a refractometer. SH

 

[Whyme]

yea something isn't right here.

you bought the tank used but how long ago was it set up at your house???
did you move around your rock work lately???
anything die lately or is anything missing???
how often do you do water changes??
what are your nitrate levels at??



I think steelhealr is right here that your tank did a recycle.

Another thing your sandsift star will not make it very long in a nano tank.