Fish gasping

[Laurabhspt]

Hi, I have lost a few fish over the last couple of months, not sure why, done the usual water changes cleans etc. Lost another today with three others behaving strangely, sitting on top of the filter at the water surface, another chasing oxygen bubbles - and so I got the API water test kit out, expecting the parameters to be nuts and to say all the fish are suffocating… but they are near on perfect?! Ammonia was a fraction high at 0.25ppm but other than that it all looked good. Regardless I will treat with prime today to try and take care of that.
What else may cause fish to behave like this? Stress? This particular tank, and I don’t know why, all the fish go nuts when you turn the lights off or walk past the tank if the light is off. They tear up the gravel and slam into the glass…. I want to try and help them be happy but I’m lost. Any help very welcome.

Swordtails female only,
Tank parameters:
Ammonia 0.25
Nitrate: 0ppm
Nitrite: 40ppm
Ph: 7.8 which apparently is ok for swords?

Thanks in advance!

 

[GaryE]

I'll leave the test kit stuff to the test kit readers, but how large is the tank, and how much does the water move for those swordtails? What temperature are you keeping them at?

There's no reason to dose with prime when you can do a water change instead.

 

[Laurabhspt]

70 litr

I'll leave the test kit stuff to the test kit readers, but how large is the tank, and how much does the water move for those swordtails? What temperature are you keeping them at?

There's no reason to dose with prime when you can do a water change instead.

70 (ish) litres I believe. Have two filters running - a UV which really provides a lot of movement of the water, and a usual multi-media filter that doesn’t agitate anywhere near as much - although I could put the spray arm back on for that to make more movement. Air on max too so get a lot of movement in the air stream.
Keep them at 37.5°

 

[GaryE]

The temp has them gasping. It is incredibly hot for that species, that should not be any higher than 26. 22-24 would be fine.

 

[Laurabhspt]

I meant 27.5 I m not actually boiling the fish but still a little high at that too?

 

[Laurabhspt]

I don’t think my aquarium heater even goes that high sorry

 

[GaryE]

Whew. But at 27.5, the oxygen in the water will be low, hence the gasping. That is still way too high. My swordtails used to slow down at 26, in high summer. I kept mine at 22-23 max. I've been in swordtail habitats, and they were rapidly flowing with water that felt around 22-23. I didn't have a thermomtre with me as I was on vacation.

I used to keep and breed a large number of various species of swordtails, as well as domestic hybrids like most of us have.

 

[Laurabhspt]

Whew. But at 27.5, the oxygen in the water will be low, hence the gasping. That is still way too high. My swordtails used to slow down at 26, in high summer. I kept mine at 22-23 max. I've been in swordtail habitats, and they were rapidly flowing with water that felt around 22-23. I didn't have a thermomtre with me as I was on vacation.

I used to keep and breed a large number of various species of swordtails, as well as domestic hybrids like most of us have.

Thankyou - as it’s literally just them I’ll turn it back down then. I had originally made it a little warmer as I had some ICH breakout so done that along with some meds, I reduced it back down but was worried to go too cool - but I’ll back down further for them.

It’s odd my 450 litre is set at 27 with the male swords, couple of bristlenose and some yoyos and they are thriving. Should I turn that down too or is it because the tank is that bit bigger it’s probably harder to actually achieve that 27 so it’s probably a bit less?

Any other ways I can increase oxygen? Shall I plug in another air stone to help them out a bit?

 

[Essjay]

Ammonia 0.25
Nitrate: 0ppm
Nitrite: 40ppm
Ph: 7.8

Ammonia should be zero, especially at that pH. Ammonia exists in two form, toxic ammonia and less toxic ammonium. Our test kits read both combined. The lower the pH, the more that is in the ammonium form, and at high pH, more is in the toxic ammonia form. Your pH is 7.8 so that means more in the toxic form than at lower pH.
Ammonia in the water is another cause of gasping at the surface.

Nitrate should be below 20 ppm. Some of your 40 ppm might be from your tap water - have you tested that? if tap nitrate is lower than your tank level, we need to look at how to get tank nitrate lower.

pH at 7.8 is OK for swordtails, but GH is more important. You should be able to find your hardness on your water company's website, it should be on the same page as your water quality report. You need a number rather than some vague words, and the unit of measurement as there are several they could use.

 

[Colin_T]

We need videos and pictures of the fish.
Upload videos to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.
If you use a mobile phone to film the fish, hold the phone horizontally (landscape mode) so the footage fills the entire screen and doesn't have black bars on either end.

How long have the fish been breathing heavily for?

Did you add anything new to the tank in the 2 weeks before this started?
Did you do a water change or anything just before this started?
Did you have visitors just before this started?

How often do you do water changes ad how much do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?
Do you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank?
Do you have buckets and hoses specifically for the fish tank?

What sort of filter is on the tank?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

What sort of fish are in the tank?
What fish have you lost?

I assume the nitrate and nitrite are mixed up. 40pm nitrite would kill a horse
What is the nitrate in the tap water?

 

[Essjay]

I assume the nitrate and nitrite are mixed up. 40pm nitrite would kill a horse

I missed that they were the wrong way round

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Assuming the .25 ppm of Total Ammonia (TA) you report is real, which I am inclined to think it is not, it is not a danger to your fish. In water most of ammonia (NH3) turns to ammonium (NH4). This is way way less toxic than ammonia. Therefore one actually should know how much of their TA reading is in each form. What determine this deoends on several factor: PH, Temperature and salinity. Since you provides all this infor for your tank, I ran your nyumbers through and online calculator.

Of your potential .25 ppm, 0.0106 ppm is NH3 and 0.2394 ppm is NH4. I am conservative in my choice of where the red line for NH3 is and I use 0.05 ppm. This pretty much protects anything we might realistically keep in our tanks. But a fair number of species can handle a higher number.

So, do not worry about that .25 ppm. A good indication it is not a real reading is if it never changes. It is impossible to keep a t tank at ,25 ppm of ammonia for any amount of time. Either the bacteria already there will multuipy fair quickly ti process it or if there insufficient bacteria, or none at all, the ammonia levels will increase. But what cannot happen is for ammonia remain a constant .25 ppm.

For those who are curious, it would take a 1.18 ppm TA in Laurabhspt's tank for NH3 to hit 0.0502 ppm.
or
Keeping the temperature the same, the pH in the tank would have to rise to 8.55 for the NH3 to hit 0.05 ppm

If lower the temperature doesn't help, I would be inclined to look elsewhere for the cause. Maybe gill Flukes? It could be velvet (Oodinium pilularis or limneticum) to name two things that cause breathing issues. Velvet is similar to Ich which can develop on the gills before it is seen on the outside of the fish. And this too can cause breathing issues.

The above are just examples of things which need to treated that exhibit breathing difficulty. I just though one should be aware of the possibility is that you are dealing with something that needs to be cured/eliminated. I did this because you have fish dying. You also have the same species in another tank at the same temperature and those fish are not having issues.

What I would suggest is that you research the three things I mentioned. Fish should develop other behaviors and.or symptoms that can indicate what is the cause of the problem.

You are now enering the part of the hobby where we are the most at a loss to deal with- diseases and parasites and diagnosing these things. And unlike the pets we might keep- dogs, cats. birds , herps farm animals- all of these we can take or get a house call by a veterinarian. This is almost impossible when it comes to our fish.

It does help when want assitence with "sick" fish if one can post pictures of the fish. Often somebody will spot something which indicates the cause of the problem of which we may not have been aware.

 

[Laurabhspt]

We need videos and pictures of the fish.
Upload videos to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.
If you use a mobile phone to film the fish, hold the phone horizontally (landscape mode) so the footage fills the entire screen and doesn't have black bars on either end.

How long have the fish been breathing heavily for?

Did you add anything new to the tank in the 2 weeks before this started?
Did you do a water change or anything just before this started?
Did you have visitors just before this started?

How often do you do water changes ad how much do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?
Do you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank?
Do you have buckets and hoses specifically for the fish tank?

What sort of filter is on the tank?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

What sort of fish are in the tank?
What fish have you lost?

I assume the nitrate and nitrite are mixed up. 40pm nitrite would kill a horse
What is the nitrate in the tap water?

Yes lol, sorry the nitrate and nitrite were wrong way round!
Ok so to answer questions, a couple of days I’ve noticed the strange behaviour, but only in 3 fish. Others all seem pretty happy, bright etc. these 3 are fine clamped and two are laying on top of the filter and one other seems a bit frantic at the top and pale.
Did you add anything new to the tank in the 2 weeks before this started? No
Did you do a water change or anything just before this started? No
Did you have visitors just before this started? No

How often do you do water changes ad how much do you change? 2weekly, between 25&50% depending on how dirty the gravel seems to be to get as much dirt out as possible
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change? Yes
Do you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank? Yes
Do you have buckets and hoses specifically for the fish tank? Yes

What sort of filter is on the tank? Two filters - one is a sponge filter with a uv light other is small hanging filter with multi media - ceramic, carbon and sponge.
How often and how do you clean the filter? Monthly in tank water removed at a small water change.

What sort of fish are in the tank? Only female swordtails
What fish have you lost? One today, and one a few weeks ago but no one else was behaving odd. Lost another that jumped out the tank a few weeks before that.

 

[Laurabhspt]

Assuming the .25 ppm of Total Ammonia (TA) you report is real, which I am inclined to think it is not, it is not a danger to your fish. In water most of ammonia (NH3) turns to ammonium (NH4). This is way way less toxic than ammonia. Therefore one actually should know how much of their TA reading is in each form. What determine this deoends on several factor: PH, Temperature and salinity. Since you provides all this infor for your tank, I ran your nyumbers through and online calculator.

Of your potential .25 ppm, 0.0106 ppm is NH3 and 0.2394 ppm is NH4. I am conservative in my choice of where the red line for NH3 is and I use 0.05 ppm. This pretty much protects anything we might realistically keep in our tanks. But a fair number of species can handle a higher number.

So, do not worry about that .25 ppm. A good indication it is not a real reading is if it never changes. It is impossible to keep a t tank at ,25 ppm of ammonia for any amount of time. Either the bacteria already there will multuipy fair quickly ti process it or if there insufficient bacteria, or none at all, the ammonia levels will increase. But what cannot happen is for ammonia remain a constant .25 ppm.

For those who are curious, it would take a 1.18 ppm TA in Laurabhspt's tank for NH3 to hit 0.0502 ppm.
or
Keeping the temperature the same, the pH in the tank would have to rise to 8.55 for the NH3 to hit 0.05 ppm

If lower the temperature doesn't help, I would be inclined to look elsewhere for the cause. Maybe gill Flukes? It could be velvet (Oodinium pilularis or limneticum) to name two things that cause breathing issues. Velvet is similar to Ich which can develop on the gills before it is seen on the outside of the fish. And this too can cause breathing issues.

The above are just examples of things which need to treated that exhibit breathing difficulty. I just though one should be aware of the possibility is that you are dealing with something that needs to be cured/eliminated. I did this because you have fish dying. You also have the same species in another tank at the same temperature and those fish are not having issues.

What I would suggest is that you research the three things I mentioned. Fish should develop other behaviors and.or symptoms that can indicate what is the cause of the problem.

You are now enering the part of the hobby where we are the most at a loss to deal with- diseases and parasites and diagnosing these things. And unlike the pets we might keep- dogs, cats. birds , herps farm animals- all of these we can take or get a house call by a veterinarian. This is almost impossible when it comes to our fish.

It does help when want assitence with "sick" fish if one can post pictures of the fish. Often somebody will spot something which indicates the cause of the problem of which we may not have been aware.

Thankyou for the very in depth reply, I just want to query why you think the 0.25ppm wouldn’t be real? Are you suggesting I’m lying or that the test was wrong?
One of the fish (the one acting erratic at the top) was flashing recently and has rubbed her scales off around her fin… do you think I’m dealing with parasites?
Shall I remove these three fish and quarantine?

I have filmed I am in the process of uploading to you tube and will post some stills too. I did try earlier and for some reason the phot isn’t showing in the thread, my apologies

 

[Laurabhspt]

The orange one with the scale damage is taken from both sides, so three fish total