Did a water change yesterday, now my fish look tired and gasping.

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
No, I wouldn't clean it right now, but I would try to figure out what's wrong with the biological filter. Like I said, it could be a simple as overfeeding. You don't clean the filter media with tap water, do you? Have the fish grown at all since you posted your "Tank Setup?" You've got a lot of fish in there -- what type of filtration are you running? How many times are you turning over the tank's volume per hour?

I think pH problems can be ruled out, at least.
 
justonemoretank;3693064; said:
No, I wouldn't clean it right now, but I would try to figure out what's wrong with the biological filter. Like I said, it could be a simple as overfeeding. You don't clean the filter media with tap water, do you? Have the fish grown at all since you posted your "Tank Setup?" You've got a lot of fish in there -- what type of filtration are you running? How many times are you turning over the tank's volume per hour?

I think pH problems can be ruled out, at least.
Click to expand...

I have a Eheim Classic 2217 in a 100 gallon tank. It says it turns the water over at a rate of 264 U.S. gal./h and the filter circulation is 209 U.S.gal./h.

I know I have a lot of fish. They haven't grown since I wrote that tank setup on the left. I know it's overstocked, but it's been like that for a few months and everything looked ok until just this morning. Also, I thought that since most of my fish are juvies, that the bioload wouldn't be that bad.

For now, I'm going to stop feeding them. I picked up 2 baby silver dats recently and try to feed them 3 times a day with blackworms to help them grow.

I'm planning on bringing a few fish back to the LFS to help with the overcrowding. So do you think it's a problem with overfeeding and my filter?
 
It very well could be the filter. I'm not sure if that GPH is representative of the filter's flow with or without media, but even at maximum flow, it's not even turning over your tank's volume three times an hour. With a tank as heavily stocked as you've stocked, you should be aiming for at least six times the volume per hour, and ten times isn't even unheard of (my pond has 12x turnover per hour, because I have large, messy fish in there).

Again, this may have nothing at all to do with what you're witnessing since this morning, so I'm not saying go buy more filtration and your fish will be okay. There's something going on here, and constant low ammonia levels, though toxic, may not be causing it. This is just a problem that I saw with the numbers you posted that I thought you may want to know about, because obviously you want to take good care of your fish.
 
If your Ammonia is constant before and after a water change then your kit might be bad. You could also have dead spots in your tank which you stir up during the water change which can cause ammonia spikes. Test the tap water that might be part of the problem.
 
Even if it was the tap water (I have Ammonia in my tap water), if the biological filter was working the way it should, it would remove all of that Ammonia by the next day, at the very most. It shouldn't just be present all the time. My tanks all show 0 Ammonia within six to eight hours of adding tap water which shows Ammonia of .5.
 
Make sure your test kit is compatible with Amquel. Some test kits will register ammonia after it has been neutralized with Amquel. Also once amquel binds the ammonia it will not be processed with a bio filter. So that ammonia reading may be the ammonia that has been bound by amquel.

from http://www.novalek.com/kordon/amquel/index.htm
AmQuel is compatible to use with all water quality test kits except for the ammonia test kit that uses Nessler reagents that read in shades of amber or yellow, and the oxygen kit that uses Winkler reagents.
Click to expand...
 
vladfloroff;3693209; said:
Make sure your test kit is compatible with Amquel. Some test kits will register ammonia after it has been neutralized with Amquel. Also once amquel binds the ammonia it will not be processed with a bio filter. So that ammonia reading may be the ammonia that has been bound by amquel.

from http://www.novalek.com/kordon/amquel/index.htm
Click to expand...


Oh yeah, I think that might explain why I'm always showing a .25 level of ammonia. I use the API Freshwater MasterTesting Kit and the ammonia test is yellow/amber on the low end to green for high ammonia.

Ever since I've started using it, it has always read at .25, even after a water change and adding Amquel.
 
I was just wondering, since I did a water change today, how long should I wait to clean the bio filter? Do I rinse the sponge off in the tank? I just don't want to kill any good bacteria.
 
You should be rinsing biological media out in old tank water that's left over after your water changes in order to preserve the bacteria. I clean my mechanical media -- filter pads and such -- in the sink, but then, I have abundant biological filtration (probably way more than necessary) on all of my tanks. I wouldn't take the chance in your situation of cleaning that filter right now. Once you see zero Ammonia, you can establish a schedule of cleaning the biological media one week, doing a water change the next, and cleaning the filter pads/sponge whatever it is you're using for mechanical filtration the next week. This way, the system has plenty of time to catch up with the changes you're making.
 
If you are using tap water and then de-chlorinating it, maybe your local water company may use chloramine and that requires about double the amount to get rid of chlorine. They do not always or have to tell you when they use either of these chemicals as either are allowed for human consumption. I also found that the nitrate levels in my local drinking water was high. So when I did water changes the nitrates never came down. Also how long did you let the water sit after adding your chemicals, sometimes they say immediate but a little agitation before pouring in helps
 
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