Terrible Terrible Day!

[sjcneedshelp321]

Right well last night my filter seemed to be unusually noisy but i left it because i was tired and this morning i was woken up, it was even louder, when i looked closer it seemed that it wasnt turning over much if any water, so immediatly i took it out and cleaned the filter, i put it in and that seemed to be much better, as soon as id done that i found one of my otos on the surface, dead. angrily i threw it away to come back and find that one of my Dwarf Puffers was missing (and has been since) the smaller of the two remaining puffers seemed to be gasping for air at the surface, and tonight the bigger of the remaining two has started doing this aswell, i tried to feed them earlier but they werent even interested, and the water seems kinda cloudy. today i did a 15% water change. i have recently added lots of plants and a nutrafin co2 dispenser, i have no extra type of airation in there. what can i do? Fearing that they will die tonight, should i put them in my other tank for the time being? (list below). Cheers Sam

Sorry for the paniky nature of the post but im kinda in a bit of a state

 

[WILDER]

What are your stats in ammonia,nitrite,nitrate,and ph.
I would preform another water change.

 

[sjcneedshelp321]

Have Cut off the CO2 as is like 8 oclock and cannot drive yet.. I checked my Ammonia and it was 0, will check nitrate nitrite tomorrow..

What percentage water change?

Cheers all

 

[WILDER]

20% water change.
Are the fish still gasping.

 

[sjcneedshelp321]

Ahh yes good idea, that didnt occur to me, and yes they are still gasping, i will do a 20% water change tomorrow after school. Cheers

 

[WILDER]

If there gasping the fish won't be around tomorrow,do a water change now.

 

[sjcneedshelp321]

ok cheers will do now

 

[Tommy Gunnz]

Turning the CO2 off in your tank has most likely changed your Ph in the tank severly and you could be seeing the resulting shock to your fish. Most FW can handle a wider range of Ph levels than they are advertised as needing, but they must be aclimated slowly to this and so a big swing in a short time will hurt them

Just as important, the sudden addition of plants can be hurting the dissolved oxygen levels in your water. Plants will compete with fish over the night time for this oxygen and so this could be a reason for gasping fish in the morning. This gasping would be continued throughout the day until you can raise the O2 levels. An airstone will NOT put air into the water directly but helps because as the bubbles hit the surface, gas exhange is promoted through surface aggitation. The tip about keeping the water lower to allow HOB filters to sort of 'cascade' down on the surface will also help promote gas exhange.

However, this could be bad for your plants of course since gas exchange is going to ensure that CO2 is released from the water and O2 being dissolved into it at the same time.

Wilder is absolutely correct here, you need to get a good set of numbers pertaining to your Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates asap. You should also test your Ph in the tank and from the source of water that you use to fill the tank and compare them.

It is so important not to overfeed your fish, we all know that, but it is just as important to remove any dead or decaying plant matter because this has the same effect as over feeding and you could be helping your tank fill up with nitrates too quickly between water changes. The best and almost only way to rid your tank of nitrates is through water changes. The higher the Ph in a tank, the more toxic ammonia, nitrites, and NITRATES are to your fish. I suspect that maybe this could be a big problem in your tank and the poorly running filter is not 100 percent to blame and IMO, possibly the least of your problems right now. A filter does not effectively remove nitrates from your tank. Carbon filter media will remove some, but depending on how long it has been since the last time you changed it, it could very likely be saturated right now and ineffective entirely.

And yes, yes, yes, do a water change.

 

[sjcneedshelp321]

Right just did a water change, slowly but from quite high up out of the bucket to maximise the amount of o2 in the water, one was gasping but one was not, tbh im not expecting the best in the morning.

Cheers Tommy. i will be doing the tests as soon as i get home tomorrow. what about putting the puffers in my main tank untill the ph stabilises?

 

[Tommy Gunnz]

I am sort of leery to say that moving the fish is a good idea. It may be fine to do that and if they all of a sudden appear normal, then you know the problem is limited to that one tank. However, if there is another cause such as bacterial or parasitic (which it doesnt sound like, but still..), you could just be making more problems for yourself.

I would ask if anyone here could quickly post any ideas on a parasite, bacteria, or other illness that could be to blame for this situation and if not, then I would move them and see if anything changes.

Again, I am so far from a plant expert it isnt even funny, but I have mulled the idea of a planted tank over quite a bit and I researched somewhat thouroughly into it. I only know the basics like how plants need and use CO2 during the day and dissolved O2 at night. At what quantities, I am unsure. The plants may be ok for a couple of days and I am sure some plants are more sensitive than others, but you are right SJC, the fish are a big concern...it would be up to fishkiller_nomore what is the most important.

 

[sjcneedshelp321]

Right well they made it through the night, all 4 of them. they still seem to be gasping though, i just took the ph and it is around the nines. my other tank is in the 7s. the nitrate 0 and nitrite 0. just to clarify from an earlier post

Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0

PH 8-9.5

So do you think i should move them while i have time to oxygenate the water/the ph stabelises. i will permanently keep the otos in this tank i am going to move them to as i dont think they will survive in the tank.

Cheers

 

[WILDER]

Keep doing small water changes, don't want to swing the ph to fast.

 

[sjcneedshelp321]

yeah i will do, there are no fish in that tank now so i amjust taking it slow, waiting for things to calm down, getting an airstone so that will heelp things i think. ive got ph lower in there and will take ph readings every day so i can tell when things are stable. Thanks wilder, Tommy and Fishkiller in my moments of madness.

Sam

 

[WILDER]

Did you climatise the fish to the other tank ph.

 

[Tommy Gunnz]

Wow, a Ph of 9.5 is very very high. To give you a judge, a site I just looked at points out that chlorine bleach has a Ph of 11. It also states that a human cannot survive if the water he or she is drinking raises the blood Ph to over 9.5 (which is news to me since I never thought of blood having a Ph, but it makes a point about your tank)

What type of Ph test are you using?

If it is a test 'strip' type of test, you may be getting a bad reading since these test are easily spoiled by not storing them properly (e.g. in a humid area). If the test is a liquid test (with the little test tubes), then you need to make sure you have the right Ph test (high range or low range) as they will give you off readings from using the wrong one. For example, out of curiousity, I tested my saltwater tank with the low range Ph and got a perfectly clear reading of 6 something (dont recall right now) when it is in reality well over 8.0. Logically one would think that the low range Ph test would register as high as possible if the water Ph is higher than what it tests up to, but this is not the case.