Fish Opening And Closing Mouth Very Quickly

[cybortech]

Hello,

Put this in the beginner section but was told to repost here.

Over the past couple of days I see my tiger barbs and tinfoil barbs especially opening and closing there mouths very quickly. I can't say i have noticed it before (I may just be paronoid)

Does this seem normal?

Checked all my stas

Amm - 0
Nit - 0
Nitrate - 20
Ph - 6.6

The Ph does seem to change lowest I saw it was 6.4 and highest being 7.2 over 6mth period.

My LFS tried to sell me chemicals to alter the Ph and also some kind of gravel to maitain it, But I felt they were just after money and did not really help.


Had to use medicine for white spot after purchasing fish(contaminated my other fish) this seems to have cleared and I am doing 25-30% water changes every seven days

Any help on the mouth problem would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[WILDER]

Do you have enough aeration in the tank, is the surface of the tank being rippled.

Let me get this you use a med for whitespot, done water changes are you using black carbon to remove the meds.

Check the gill area to make sure there not pale or red and inflamed, any excess mucas on them.

 

[cybortech]

Do you have enough aeration in the tank, is the surface of the tank being rippled.

Yes the water is rippling Juewl filter not the greatest but also have air stones.

Let me get this you use a med for whitespot, done water changes are you using black carbon to remove the meds.

Carbon has been removed. Given med for 7 days then a water change

Check the gill area to make sure there not pale or red and inflamed, any excess mucas on them.

No mucas and the do not appear to red or inflamed.

Thank you.

 

[WILDER]

You have alot of fish there, and bala sharks need to be kept in groups and they need very large tanks no less than 75gals.
You need to put the black carbon back in if you finished with the med.
With all those fish and a juwel filter which are not very good, as i have them and i have a back up filter in the tank, sounds like you need one.

 

[andywg]

Looks like a lack of dissolved oxygen to me. Bala sharks like a lot of oxygen, and as fish grow large their oxygen demands (I understand) increase exponentially as a result of the relation between length, area and volume.

I find bala sharks need a group of 5 or 6 before you really see them relax into a tank, and due to their large size and skittish nature a 6x2x2 is the smallest to consider for them for life.

I would sort the stocking of the tank out. There are a lot of fish in there considering how crap the Juwek internal filters are.