heavy breathing? help please

[Bobtastic6]

i bought 7 1" rbp's almost 2 weeks ago and put them in my planted 120g. everything has been great so far but today i noticed that they are all breathing heavily (gills moving really fast back and forth), even staying at the surface doing what looks like trying to breath the air above the water. my nitrates and nitrites are near non existent, pH is 6.5-6.8, general hardness about 20 ppm. i also have my air pump active adding oxygen to the water just in case. is this an adverse reaction to the plant nutrients i add periodically?

any suggestions or are they going to be fine?

 

[JohnnyZanni]

Whats your water tempature? Do you have much surface movement? What is your ammonia reading? Are you dosing co2?

 

[arrow]

Its an ammo spike, test for it and do a waterchange asap.
You're using the test strips right? Junk em and buy an api masterkit that also has an ammonia test.

I dont rememberif ammo is more toxic at higher or lower ph but either way a water change is def needed right away.

Have you cleaned your filters recently, was your tank cycled, how much filtration do you have and be sure to check the tank for any uneaten scraps of food?

 

[JohnnyZanni]

Its an ammo spike, test for it and do a waterchange asap.
You're using the test strips right? Junk em and buy an api masterkit that also has an ammonia test.

I dont rememberif ammo is more toxic at higher or lower ph but either way a water change is def needed right away.

Have you cleaned your filters recently, was your tank cycled, how much filtration do you have and be sure to check the tank for any uneaten scraps of food?

Higher PH increases the toxicity of ammonia.

 

[ilikeb00st]

make sure you have a good turnover rate on your filter too. I usually go over filtration at least 5x turnover rate. so if i have a 40 gallon, I filter at 200 GPH. My old 220 gallon x 14 RBP had a 55 gallon sump with mag 18 pump. Also make sure you have a lot of surface agitation. Its been a few days since you started the thread, how are they doing now?