Air bubbles on peacock.

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Brazzen1

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Aug 18, 2013
423
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Chickasaw Nation
Hi everyone, yesterday I purchased a dragon's blood peacock and everything was fine when I turned out the lights last night, after observing it for about 4-5 hours. This morning when I turned on the lights it was floating with his mouth open and covered with air bubbles, he's still alive (gill movement and pectoral fins twitching). All of my other fish are fine. It is a planted tank. I don't know if this is the right forum, if not please move to the correct one. Thanks for any help.

Nitrate 5
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
PH 8.4
 
Have you preformed a large water change recently? It sounds like wthat is commonly refered to as Gas Bubble Disease or Oxygen oversaturation. This "disease" is most frequently seen in heavily planted or Algae-ridden aquariums. In this environment, oxygen production can be so great that it upsets the balance of dissolved gases in the water causing very small gas bubbles to form on and or inside of the fish. Once these bubbles move to the blood stream they can be fatal. It is similar to nitrogen narcosis suffered by divers that acend to quickly. This is about all I can thik of. Do a partial water change about 25% with water of a very close temp of the tank water to try and restore the balance. Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for the info, I was treating my tank for ich (ick attack) & melafix cause some of my other fish had been fighting. I haven't changed the water in a few weeks because of the treatment. Since I was using melafix, I heard that it cuts down on the dissolved O2, so I turned my air pump up high. I have 1 melon sword, 3 java ferns, 1 banana plant & a few clumps of java moss. If it is over saturation how can I prevent this in the future and why didn't it affect my other fish?
 
Excessive compression can cause super saturation of gas in the water. (Think of carbonated water.) This is likely a combination of higher temps (I assume you have raised temps for the ich) and turning the pump up high. It's possible that melafix encourages this, but that is just speculation. Since plants perform gas exchanges, they may be part of the process as well.

Do a water change and turn down the pump. In the future, watch fish for signs of stress (rapid gil movement or gulping at the surface) before turning the pump up high.
 
Thanks Drstrangelove, the temp is 73.9. Why would just this one fish be affected, I also added a red-tail shark at the same time and it's doing fine. I do keep my light on for 19hrs (1hr moon light and 17 hrs regular because I'm using a marineland led hood). The melafix did make my water seem "sudsy", could that have something to do with it? Now I'm not so sure that I should set-up a Dutch style aquarium.
 
Because just like the example of a diver slowly decompressing to equalize the pressure inside the body with the external pressure, the fish already in the tank were accclamated to this. The new fish apprently was not, the sudden change in the oxagen level caused the issue. Depressurisation causes gases in the blood stream, which were dissolved under higher pressure, to come out of physical solution and form gas bubbles within the body. These bubbles produce the symptoms of Gas Bubble diease. Bubbles may form whenever the fish experiences a reduction in pressure. The shark appently handeled this better and was no effected or if it was to a much lesser extent. It is a pretty rare occurance and I wouldn't worry about it too much going foward.
 
Small frequent water changes and make sure the temperatures are the same when introducing new fish and changing water in the tank, is about all I can advise. This is more common in heavly planted tanks but even then it is a rare occurance. Slow acclamazition and temp equalization will prevent this. GL
 
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