Tetra With Gills Open

[patricka]

hi,

this morning I checked my aquarium, I'm new to this by the way and I noticed that 2 of my 6 black phantom tetras have their gills open...

what happened last night is that I added water (good clean water with the liquid to kill chlorine, the water came from the tap but was on hold for a day to get rid of chlorine) to the tank and my filter wasn't splashing anymore so my guess this morning was low oxygen in the water so I pushed the filter up a bit to create splash on the surface... I also have live plants in my aquarium.

I tested also this morning as soon as I saw that the ammonia and nitrite levels and it was all 0.

I fogot to test the PH... can it be due to low ph? if it is due to low ph how do I take the ph up? with baking soda?

any other ideas? I would like to understand what's going on if I did a mistake so that I don't do that again. no deaths... everything seemed fine they're all eating and moving fine but I'm curious about why the open gills...

thanks.

 

[Embrace]

Hi,
A few questions that will help:

1. What size tank
2. What fish are in the tank
3. Is your tank cycled?

It sounds to me like ammonia poisining.

 

[patricka]

Hi,
A few questions that will help:

1. What size tank
2. What fish are in the tank
3. Is your tank cycled?

It sounds to me like ammonia poisining.

20G tank
tetras only 6 of them
not cycled but I use cycle to make sure I don't hit crazy peaks. I also tested for ammonia this morning and it was at 0 with my API kit.

 

[patricka]

found the issue,
my aquarium cycle is starting or has started... I have ammonia to 0.25 and same for nitrite but 0 for nitrate.

so I guess the sickness is ammonia stress.

I removed about 15% of the water and replaced it with new water, will do that until my ammonia and nitrate are both at 0... it will probably take the week. then I will do a 25% water change once per week and keep monitoring my ammonia and nitrite levels every other day.

thoughts?

 

[Embrace]

As your tank is cycling, you will need to do a 10% change a day, unless levels go higher (you may need to do more then).