Fish Swimming At The Top

[KevS]

Hi my wife and I are still new to fish keeping (less than 6 months). Today we did a gravel clean and water change. We also changed all the plants as the old ones had either beaten eaten or wrecked.

In the tank we have the following

Black Widows
Serpai Tetras
Pink Wodows
Platys
Neons
Swordtails
Balloon Molleys
Molleys
1 Plex
Blue dwarf Gourami
Orange Dwarf Gourami

This evening unusually they all seem to be swimming along the waterline - should I be conerned ?

Any help / suggestions welcome

 

[jacko9901]

Hi my wife and I are still new to fish keeping (less than 6 months). Today we did a gravel clean and water change. We also changed all the plants as the old ones had either beaten eaten or wrecked.

In the tank we have the following

Black Widows
Serpai Tetras
Pink Wodows
Platys
Neons
Swordtails
Balloon Molleys
Molleys
1 Plex
Blue dwarf Gourami
Orange Dwarf Gourami

This evening unusually they all seem to be swimming along the waterline - should I be conerned ?

Any help / suggestions welcome

how big is your tank?

have you got an oxygen pump?

is this the first water change you have done?

how did you do your water change and did you use declorinator on the water being added in?

do you test your water. if so what are your latest results?

 

[KevS]

Hi my wife and I are still new to fish keeping (less than 6 months). Today we did a gravel clean and water change. We also changed all the plants as the old ones had either beaten eaten or wrecked.

In the tank we have the following

Black Widows
Serpai Tetras
Pink Wodows
Platys
Neons
Swordtails
Balloon Molleys
Molleys
1 Plex
Blue dwarf Gourami
Orange Dwarf Gourami

This evening unusually they all seem to be swimming along the waterline - should I be conerned ?

Any help / suggestions welcome

how big is your tank?

>>> its a Juwel Rekord 60 - 54 Litres

have you got an oxygen pump?

>>>> Not sure what you mean we have a water pump and filter

is this the first water change you have done?

>>> no

how did you do your water change and did you use declorinator on the water being added in?

>>> Replaced the water via the filter system with warm tap water

do you test your water. if so what are your latest results?

>>> No, we've had it tested in the local store in the past and its been fine

 

[vinylman]

Even if we assume you only have a couple of each fish, you're massively overstocked for a 54ltr. How often have you been doing water changes and how much (%) each time?. Do you always remember to dechlorinate the water and how do you clean the filter media?. I have to say, though, that you need to choose which fish you REALLY want to keep, because something will have to go, unfortunately.

 

[Ficious]

just buy a 55 gallon and start over

then youll have 2 tanks...2 well-stocked tanks

 

[Corleone]

>>> No, we've had it tested in the local store in the past and its been fine

Did you get numbers, or did they just say "fine"? What stores say is fine isn't always. To prove the point, I've taken water far beyond toxic enough to kill the hardiest fish to a pet store and been told it was "fine."

http/www.fishforums.net/content/forum/24...-Water-Testing/

That's an extreme example, but an important point: The fish store's job is to sell fish, not to ensure their care once they leave. It's particularly important to test at home to get a feel for trends with your water quality - a particular set of water stats might not be worrying in themselves, but could still fit into a worrying trend.

All that said, your tank is about 15 gallons, so cycled it could support 15-20 inches of fish at the most. From the fish you list, assuming one of each you're slightly over stocked (though depending on the species, the plec could massively overstock a much larger tank on his own once he's had some time to grow), but aside from the plec you use plural, so as said above, even with 2 of each, you're heavily overstocked, and possibly your fish are oxygen deprived. Any nitrite in the water - if it isn't fully cycled, if the filter isn't keeping up with the bioload (possible with the stocking level), or if a lot of fish have been added to cause a mini cycle - will make this worse, as it reduces their blood's ability to carry oxygen.

 

[KevS]

guys thanks for your help - the fish all seem fine today - do you really believe that we have overtocked they all seem fine and there's plenty of space.

I did say that we are novices but we do read books and we only get communal fish that don't grow too big.

They seem to get on ok with only the occassional skirmish but that settles down.

If you believe that I am overstocked what should I get rid of ???

We have had this number of fish for about 4 months now and all seems fine.

WE have lots of plants and plenty of hideaways but also plenty of space for the good swimmers - the tank doesn't look cluttered but would welcome your comments again.

thanks

 

[Corleone]

I would get rid of the pleco, TBH. There's small species that only get around 5-6 inches, but most of the commonly sold species will get 18+ inches - some of them can get a lot bigger than that, even. They're all fairly high bioload fish.

Beyond that, it depends on how many you have of everything, and water quality.

Even if you keep all the fish for now, you really need to do testing at home as said above, or at least see the pet shop's results and get write down numbers. If your ammonia and nitrite stay 0 at all times and nitrate is kept low enough and ph stable, it might not be necessary to rehome fish straight away, but it's still going to be a risky situation having a lot of fish in a small tank, as when things go wrong, they'll go wrong fast and potentially spiral out of control. In that case, you'd want to start preparing a suitable tank.

 

[SPO-00L]

you say you filled it with "warm" tap water. Do you have copper pipes? Possibly excess copper levels in the water maybe stressing the fish?

 

[vinylman]

We really need to know how many of each fish you have. Many of the fish you list need to be in groups of at least 5/6 and with a tank the size of yours, it won't be possible to have many groups. Swordtails in particular can get large very quickly; they alone will use a lot of the space.