i got my 125 gallon tank all cycled and ready to go, and i moved my fish in and after about a couple hours they started breathing heavy, so i thought they were lacking oxygen, so i put in a high power pump with two air strips in and they are still breathing heavy about 2 hours later. what could cause this? what can i do to treat it?
rapid breathing, what to do?
- Thread starter jerzyperson
- Start date
Ammonia could burn the gills but you probably already had that tested. If the temp has gotten too high then the oxygen level will drop.
well i have a payara in it, so i started reading and found they like warm temps, all the fish in there being tropical i thought i could safely boost the temp to about 81-82 degrees, i have tested it and everything checks out so i will get some ammonia out just incase they started an ammonia spike, i will test in the morning and make sure.
Instead of just dumping a chemical into your tank in case you have high ammonia, why don't you check if you have high ammonia first.
i would check your water parameters first before dumping ANYTHING in the tank.. what exactly is your ammonia, nitrites and nitrate levels? start there first...
well my ammnia was and still is a lil high, im not quite sure where it is as im not good with colors. nitites are a little high, so i did a 50% water change about a half an hour ago, so i should know here in a little bit what i need to do
yeah its the ammonia. any trace amounts is pretty damaging to a fishes very vascular gills... keep doing small waterchanges everyday til you get that ammonia down low.. once the tank is truly cycled you should never have any ammonia in it-and you wont have any nitrites either-it will convert to the least damaging bacteria nitrates.
well i just ran some test's and found that my ammonia is very low, and so are nitrites. i will do another small water change in the morning. i am excited that it is calming down know because now all my fish are breathing a normal and getting more active (especially my payara) thank you. i will keep you updated if something dramatic happenes