42 replies to this topic

[marek90]

hi i forgot to do a water change because they seemed happy if happy must be all good yeh well maybe not
it was 3 weeks since last water change i have a 3foot i think 120ltr with
2 Brichardi
4 electric yellow
2 venustus
1 Maylandia callainos
1 Jewel Red Forest
2 Melanochromis Johanni
1Electric Blue all around 7cm to 12cm

i did a water change about 30ltrs on 26/3 and they had a breathing fit the next day i did some tests (ppm)
GH 180
KH 150
pH 8+
NO2 0
NO3 20 to 40
NH3 0

i did anther one today (31/3) 60% and still breathing hard can someone tell why is this, it always happens to me and how can i prevent torchering my fish with high NO3 help help help

[Cawdor]

The smaller the tank the less forgiving it is when it comes to water changes - just a general rule. Don't wait for the fish to act abnormally before doing a water change, just try and do them on a regular basis as part of your routine.

Are your fish at the surface breathing hard or at the bottom?

[golden_dase]

Turn up your air pump to full blast!

[Scales]

also whats the temp of the tank?

[giz]

Did you use a good water conditioner??

[marek90]

The smaller the tank the less forgiving it is when it comes to water changes - just a general rule. Don't wait for the fish to act abnormally before doing a water change, just try and do them on a regular basis as part of your routine.

Are your fish at the surface breathing hard or at the bottom?

hi thanks for helping they are all breathing more then usual they are mostly in the mid section

[marek90]

Turn up your air pump to full blast!

hi um i don't have a air pump i got an Eheim Classic 2213 Canister Filter it filter for aquariums up to 250 litres so i got hald of that and i got the spray bar just on the top so it making lots of ripples on the surface so air supply i think is significant

[marek90]

also whats the temp of the tank?

well as we know heater take a lot of power so i think majority of us turn it off for summer mine still off the 3foot is 24.4 (morning) during the day get to about 26
btw i got a other tanks too a 2foot with fry red forest jewels and a 5foot 250ltr out side with convicts and red forest jewels about 4cm and outside tank ranges on the weather morning i just measured it its 18.7 and yesterday i saw 26.3 around 4pm and they have no problem my mate told me he tested a convict for temp and he said 16.5 is the minimum or they die so a few more weeks outside for them and thats it!

[marek90]

Did you use a good water conditioner??

dose it matter what water conditioner don't the do all the same job?
well i think i got a good one otherwise tell me off i am using API Stress Coat+ it replaces fish slime coat and electrolyte and removes chlorine chloramines & ammonia well thats what they claim it dose

[adrian]

hate to tell you this but 20-40 no3 is not high it is considered normal and if you were running an Aquaponics set up you would expect it to be around 50. My partner had hers up to 250 in one of her tanks. It is is not as bad as what the Aquarium people make out! your fish just become aclimatised to the tank.

[Ivan Sng]

Well nitrates up to 100ppm should be fine for fish health for a short-medium term. Not too sure about 250ppm... But yes my aquaponics system is constantly at 40ppm and above... fish growing and eating just fine...

Not sure about your case, but very often some fail to understand that aeration via spray bars varies also with the fall of the water onto the water surface... if you have not done a water change for some time, but have you been topping up your tank water... if not, then by topping up your tank water, you have effectively reduced the water fall height and the amount of aeration produced by the spray bar...

I do not use water conditioners... IMO get yourself an air pump and put some air into the tank, if the fishes return to normal, then you know that it is the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water that is affecting their behaviour... what this also means is that you will need to consider some sort of air backup system (battery) for aeration since in the event of a power failure, you lose air pump and spray bars... and you could lose fishes as well...

[Scales]

the combination of what you have described above would tend to indicate that you need more o2 in your tank as ivan has suggested. a spray bar causing 'ripples' is probably not adequate for the 13 odd fish you have in a 3 foot tank. if all your fish are gasping then it is a definate indication of low o2, and given that i only run heaters in my big tanks in my fish room and the ones without heaters are sitting around 27-29 degrees due to current temps, (as there is a fluctuation in your temps i dare say that it gets warmer than the 26 degrees you are saying) it would be an even more obvious reason to add an airstone due to the reduced capacity for warmer water to hold disolved o2.

we could be wrong but with your responses to our questions indicating that you seem to think everything is ok and actually comical if i was you i might either spend $15 on a simple pump and airstone, just in case, or be prepared to pay for more fish when the community dies down till there is only enough fish that the tanks air supply can handle

[Link2Hell]

I'm guessing you do your water change straight from the hose

Chris

[Ivan Sng]

Well there is another consideration you need to think of... The nitrification process that converts harmful ammonia to nitrate requires oxygen to carry out its wonders... The lack of dissolved oxygen in your water could have a double effect, 1) less oxygen for the fishes, 2) making your biological filter less effective. So there will be two ways you can kill your fishes... In short, both your filtration process and fishes are after the same limited oxygen supply...

[anchar]

I'm guessing that with the downpour and all the extra impurities that have made their way into the water supply, the water board has probably increased it's chemical imput. Our water smells more "chloriney" atm.

Andrea

[Warby]

well as we know heater take a lot of power so i think majority of us turn it off for summer mine still off the 3foot is 24.4 (morning) during the day get to about 26
btw i got a other tanks too a 2foot with fry red forest jewels and a 5foot 250ltr out side with convicts and red forest jewels about 4cm and outside tank ranges on the weather morning i just measured it its 18.7 and yesterday i saw 26.3 around 4pm and they have no problem my mate told me he tested a convict for temp and he said 16.5 is the minimum or they die so a few more weeks outside for them and thats it!

This one always puzzles me.... the heaters should not kick in until water temperature drops below your preferred temperature. In summer the ambient temperature should help to keep your tank warm, so the heater should not turn on as often anyway... I really cannot see how unplugging heaters in summer makes any sense - you still need your temperature to remain stable in the tank, and if the ambient temperature causes your tank temp to rise above your desired temperature then unplugging your heater isn't going to result in the water getting any cooler.....

-Dave

[marek90]

the combination of what you have described above would tend to indicate that you need more o2 in your tank as ivan has suggested. a spray bar causing 'ripples' is probably not adequate for the 13 odd fish you have in a 3 foot tank. if all your fish are gasping then it is a definate indication of low o2, and given that i only run heaters in my big tanks in my fish room and the ones without heaters are sitting around 27-29 degrees due to current temps, (as there is a fluctuation in your temps i dare say that it gets warmer than the 26 degrees you are saying) it would be an even more obvious reason to add an airstone due to the reduced capacity for warmer water to hold disolved o2.

we could be wrong but with your responses to our questions indicating that you seem to think everything is ok and actually comical if i was you i might either spend $15 on a simple pump and airstone, just in case, or be prepared to pay for more fish when the community dies down till there is only enough fish that the tanks air supply can handle

well i put a air stone that i had running in my fry tank and so far 2 days in it and i can see that no3 is back to normal ( 0ppm ) but that could be just that no3 was removed so i put it back in the 2foot tank well iam doing a test to see if air stone matters

the way i see it go to Lake Tanganyika or Lake Malawi you don't see bubbles popping out so i ask my self where dose air come from well the water surface and this is what iam doing making water flow i know this is highly arguable lets put it this way an air bubble might have a surface area of 3mm2 and it lasts about 1seconds in the tank from bottom to top now times that by about 200 bubbles in that 1 seconds going up 200x60= 12000 bubbles a min 12000x 3mm2 = 36000mm2 thats 36 meters a minute now 34cm x 90.5cm = 3077cm2 surface area of water (on top of tank) 3077cm x 60sec = 184620cm2 thats 1846.2 m of air a min touching the surface with a air stone its a extra of 36 meters extra so to me its not a difference now iam not a mathematician so if you are you are welcome to fix it up if i did it wrong now i know you can compare this coz is equal and i know an air bobble has its own pressure and different absorption rate but i still don't think it would be more than 1.8km so iam saying it a waste of power except for marine coz it removes protein we can leave it to mythbuster to do the absorption of o2 in fish and atmospheric psi extra extra.....

[nick05]

Marek sometimes we look into things a little too much, we just do what keeps our fish healthy happy and alive.
In Lake Malawi or Tanganyika the fish don't stay in the same water for 3 weeks yet you left water change for 3 weeks so if the advice on here is to run an air pump I'd do it??

It's not the most thought out example but you get the drift lol

Nick

[Cawdor]

the way i see it go to Lake Tanganyika or Lake Malawi you don't see bubbles popping out

You are of course correct. But the surface area of the lake is also a tad more than your 3ft tank Plus you have wind blowing across the surface as well.

A common misconception is that bubbles "put air into water". This is not correct. The main gas exchange between the air and the water happens at the water surface. Bubbles do two things:

1. create a water flow from the bottom so air deprived water from the bottom is brought up
2. break the water surface to aid in gas exchange.

The gas exchange between an actual bubble and the water is negligible, it's the increased exposure of a higher volume of water to the air that's increasing your oxygen in the water.
You also have to ensure that there is enough air on top of the water surface - so if you have lids on your tank then removing them will increase the airflow across the water surface = more oxygen in the water.

[Ivan Sng]

the way i see it go to Lake Tanganyika or Lake Malawi you don't see bubbles popping out

Yes and you probably do not see the huge amount of aquatic plants in the lake that release oxygen as part of photosynthesis.
Established lakes have a more complex ecosystem than just what you see on the surface...

I am sure that the aquarium trade sells air pump for a reason... alternatively you can somehow connect a venturi to your existing filtration pump to add oxygen into the water...
IMO fishes take raised ammonia levels better than the lack of air...