More On Oxygen....

Hi people, got some more oxygen problems.

Basically, i changed the substrate recently from gravel to sand... looks good. Of course, in order to do this i had to siphon out all of the water remove the fish, plants, fake wooden log and of course the gravel. I put everything, including the water into a 10 gallon plastic tub, cleaned the whole tank and rinsed out the sand like a hundred times . I the added the sand, made it look good and then filled the tank halfway up with some the original water. I then filled the rest of the tank with clean tap water which had been dechlorinated, dechloramined, ammonia remover (out of habit) was added and something called 'nutrafin waste control biological aquarium cleaner' plus some aquarium salts (out of habit again). I didn't clean the sponge in the filter so all the bacteria was still there, i also didn't have any more rena crystals (i think they are basically carbon), so i didn't put them in the filter either. I let the tank water run through my filter for about 15 mins to mix up all the water and came out with a tenperature of 74 degrees.
I angled my filter outlet up to create more agitation on the waters surface (it also created bubbles), and my plants are doing ok, the tall plant in the middle (in the picture) has some green algae growth but as you can see, my 1 little snail (snuck in on one of my plants from the LFS) is tucking into it. The plant on the left (the red one) also has a lot of algae growth on it as you can see from the close up picture of it, the end of it's leaves are also dying and turning transparent (in might give up on it- i've never had any luck with verigated plants). Anyway, as you can probably tell, i have no idea what my plants are called, so if somebody could name them, that would be really helpful!
Also, could you tell me whats going on with my fish- if anything- or if there is just a lack of oxygen in the water, today has been pretty hot mind you.

Thanks, sorry for the essay.




This is the whole fish tank



apparently, i have used 99.3 k of my 100k global upload quota with this picture so i think i will have tp post the other pics seperatley... i guess

Just showing the aeration present....



Just showing location of tank... as you can see, i can't really get anything bigger unfortunatley.



my zebras gulping at surface...



the unknown algae i was on about...



Sorry for the poor photos

By the way, the photos make it look like the water isn't being agitated but trust me, it is, i would have taken a photo of the filter outlet but my camera didn't seem to put the photo on my laptop before it ran out of batery...

I have the photo of the filter outlet...

from what I can find there are no verigated aquatic plants so that will be why you're not doing to well with them. As for your fish I'm afraid I don't know, it could be an ammonia issue; that normally causes gasping but would wait for someone else on that one.

I agree with the ammonia issue. Do you have any specific water parameter results?

Did you acclimatise the fish regardless of using half of the old tank water?

I would add an additional aeration device to see if that helps. Should help within a few hours of being installed.

I'm affraid i have no specific water parameters at the moment, my local fish store is selling the kits at £33.00 (they only have the

masters kit available) and i'm affriad i'm not willing to pay that much. I do have another Local fish store however thats a good drive

away so will go there on the weekend.

I did a smallish water change of 25% to see if it might be ammonia levels and the fish are swimming underneath the water more

frequently now. I guess thats a good sign? Also, what do you think of those ammonia remover products, i used it today and by the

sounds of things it didn't really do anything? Also, i don't have any aeration devices, my parents won't let me keep one becuase they

are too noisy- even the extra quiet ones. Sorry one more thing, by saying "parents" i might have given off the impression that i was a

30 year old man still living alone with his parents or something , i'm not, i'm still in sixth form doing my A levels.

Also, can you guys tell me what you think of my tank and how i could improve it? Do you think that filter oulet i adapted to shoot

water up in the air (see picture) is aerating the water much?

ParadiseGuerrero said:

from what I can find there are no verigated aquatic plants so that will be why you're not doing to well with them. As for your fish I'm afraid I don't know, it could be an ammonia issue; that normally causes gasping but would wait for someone else on that one.

Click to expand...

Sorry about that, i didn't really know how to describe the red plant in the corner... i just thought verigated meant a plant with a

colour other than green on it- sorta stupid i know but what the hey- we live and learn right.