fish breathing heavily
9 posts
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Dpil19901 - Posts: 23
- Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 7:03 pm
fish breathing heavily
For the last 4 day my 2 red eye tetras and 3black neon tetras have been sitting around breathing heavily my 3 red wag platys and 2 zebra danios are doing fine i just added a amazon sword and did a water change and adjusted the water temperature the tank is a 20 gal tall with an aqua clear 50 filter 2 air stones
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dizzcat - Posts: 648
- Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:30 am
Have you checked your ammonia levels? They should be at 0. Also, when you did a water change, did you forget to add the dechlorinator? I am not good with sick fish advice, these are just a couple things I thought of.
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Dpil19901 - Posts: 23
- Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 7:03 pm
ok thx and i did check ammonai today and its high like .28ppm(wat could i do about this) also i use uv sterlized well water for my tank
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dizzcat - Posts: 648
- Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:30 am
To help get the ammonia down, do a large water change, at least 50%. If its still high the next day, do another 30% water change.
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zambize - Posts: 401
- Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:14 pm
Also check nitrites. Nitrites are actually deadly than ammonia and it sounds more like nitrite poisoning. After an ammonia spike you can often expect a nitrite spike.
You also need to be very concerned with why your tank is experiencing this spike. Is it new and going through the new tank cycle? Do you have to many fish? Do you not change the water often enough? Do you overfeed? Have you had fish die lately and not notice? What's going on? You've got to stop the source of ammonia.
Z
You also need to be very concerned with why your tank is experiencing this spike. Is it new and going through the new tank cycle? Do you have to many fish? Do you not change the water often enough? Do you overfeed? Have you had fish die lately and not notice? What's going on? You've got to stop the source of ammonia.
Z
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dizzcat - Posts: 648
- Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:30 am
Also, to add to what Z asked, do you wash your filter media under tap water? If you do, you are killing off all the good bacteria that keeps these levels down. ALWAYS rinse out the media (the sponges in a filter) in tank water only, never under the tap!
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Dpil19901 - Posts: 23
- Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 7:03 pm
I think the ammonia was the prob since they are doing better now the tank been running for a least a year and i don't rinse with tap water i did have some decaying plant material which could the reason for ammonia spike