Fish At Top Of Tank Gasping For Air

[fishyfriendz]

Hi!



This is my problem. I have a newly established tank, eleven weeks old. All was fine until thursday when I noticed that I have alot of fry in my tank, a mixture of endlers livebearers and guppies.

On friday I noticed that alot of the fish, including the fry, seemed to be at the top. I did a 25% water change and all was well.

On saturday morning the same thing happened and so I did another water change. By the evening I had the same situation and so did another water change. This morning I have a dead adult live bearer, and fish at the top again. Hence another water change.

I have tested the water throughout and it has stayed stable at PH 6.5, Ammonia 0 Nitrate 0 Nitrite .20

The tank is a relatively small 80 litre community, with..

2 ballloon mollies
3 balloon mollie fry
3 adult guppies
2 ottocinclus
2 clown loaches
1 endlers livebearer
20 fry guppy and endlers

The clown loaches have only been in a week and are going to a good home next week as they were only brought in to help with a snail infestation. The molly was pregnant when I got her, as was the endlers, and I have been in touch with a LFS who have agreed to take the fry when they are big enough. But where am I going wrong ?

 

[fishyfeet]

hmm what filter do you have, are you sure the test kit your using is right, sounds like ammonia poisening to me, di

 

[fishyfriendz]

hmm what filter do you have, are you sure the test kit your using is right, sounds like ammonia poisening to me, di

I am testing using nutrifin liquid tests. I have used them throughout and they have pretty good. The fish wer all fine when until the fry. I have a orca mt50 and I am using the internal filter I cleaned the sponges with aquarium water....

 

[fishyfeet]

hmm, its strange, id say, that the fry has placed a additional burden on the filter resulting in ammonia affecting the fish, did you test the water before doing a water change

 

[Truck]

Any substrate disturbances lately?

 

[fishyfeet]

also temperature, the hight the temp the less oxygen in the water, althugh they are tropical fish so they shouldnt have a problem or or adding salt will help them remove the oxygen more easily, but i cant see the problem if the tests are correct. di

 

[fishyfriendz]

Any substrate disturbances lately?

Other than plants becoming dislodged when I was changing the water, no

 

[Truck]

Maneuver your filter so it is causing maximum surface disturbance and all should be fine.

 

[mossy69056]

have you an airstone and a pump with the tank?

 

[fishyfriendz]

also temperature, the hight the temp the less oxygen in the water, althugh they are tropical fish so they shouldnt have a problem or or adding salt will help them remove the oxygen more easily, but i cant see the problem if the tests are correct. di

The temperature is around 80, I have done four tests, one before w/c and one seven hours after....I can add salt but will it affect my plants? I have quite a few plants, could they be affecting the oxygen levels? Should I add an airstone? I cant really do anything about the fry as I have only this tank and no one I know has tanks, and the LFS wont take them until they are larger thanks for the help and sorry for all the questions!

have you an airstone and a pump with the tank?

no... I am a bit cluelesds on how I would fit one what with the filtration chambers being where they are etc

 

[Truck]

No need to add an airstone, they do nothing anyway, they're only any good for decorative purposes, surface disturbance is the best aerator there is.

 

[fishyfriendz]

No need to add an airstone, they do nothing anyway, they're only any good for decorative purposes, surface disturbance is the best aerator there is.

Thank you! Ive adjusted the outlet and hopefully that will help. Do I need to add the salt?

 

[Truck]

You never need to add salt.

 

[fishyfeet]

No need to add an airstone, they do nothing anyway, they're only any good for decorative purposes, surface disturbance is the best aerator there is.

yes thats what i would have said too, and the plants should provide plenty of oxygen and wont appreciate the aeration or salt.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi fishyfriendz and welcome to TFF!

Was that a typo up in your initial post re the stats? It seems to say:
ammonia 0.0ppm (via Nutrafin test)
nitrate(NO3) 0ppm
nitrite(NO2) 0.20ppm

Did you mean the NO2 and NO3 that way or was it switched around?

At 11 weeks (77 days) of fish-in cycling, we'd expect the biofilter to be reasonably mature but sometimes we do not see them really fully clearing to zero until past 80 days, so if you are really getting a trace of nitrite(NO2) still, then it could be you are still in a fish-in cycling situation. Even traces of nitrite will stress fish, since its giving them nerve damage.

All of this of course hinges on your answers above but if indeed we're still seeing traces of nitrite then it might suggest we'd want the gravel-clean-water-changes to be larger and/or more frequent for a while longer.

Note that all the advice above from Truck and Fishyfeet is excellent too, about the surface movement and all (agree with all of it.) They are more experienced than me and so may be seeing some things I'm not.

~~waterdrop~~