urgent help needed! My Amazon puffers are coming to the tank water surface what should I do?

[professorjimjam]

Tonight, I see that my amazon puffers are coming to surface, other fishes act normal but only amazon puffers are coming to surface also one other small fish too.

it does not look they want to breath there becuase they are not 100% on the surface but few mm below the surface, but all four of them act the same way. please see photo.

I did water change yesterday and ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all zero . water temp is also fine. I do not know why they do this behavior, I do not see any sign of sickness like white spots. I also did not add any new fish today.

What could be the problem and should I do another water change? I also have some medicine leftover from the 6 months ago curing ich, should I use that medicine again?

please help.




I should mention that I only added two leaves, I mean those aquatic leaves into the water tonight.

 

[Deadeye]

Videos would help. Other than those beaks getting long, nothing looks noticeably wrong.
Any aggression perhaps? Maybe they just want food?

 

[professorjimjam]

Thanks very much Deadeye. here is youtube video I just uploaded.

 

[duanes]

There doesn't seem to be much surface agitation, might want to turn up pumps, or add another airstone.

Since these are Amazon puffers, just curious what kind of water parameters the tank is running?

 

[professorjimjam]

thank you very much duanes.

the tank came with its own pump, I do not see any option in the pump to turn it up. it is Fluva flex 32.5G pump, 220 V / 50 Hz: 203 US Gal/h (770 L/h)

does it mean that there is less oxygen in the water? what could cause the deplete of oxygen in the water? too many fish or too many plants? will adding an airstore will solve the problem? the tank has large surface area and the pump makes good flow of water on the surface, I thought that flow on the surface is sufficient to generate oxygen.

I truly appreciate your help.

 

[Rtc/tsn]

Tonight, I see that my amazon puffers are coming to surface, other fishes act normal but only amazon puffers are coming to surface also one other small fish too.

it does not look they want to breath there becuase they are not 100% on the surface but few mm below the surface, but all four of them act the same way. please see photo.

I did water change yesterday and ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all zero . water temp is also fine. I do not know why they do this behavior, I do not see any sign of sickness like white spots. I also did not add any new fish today.

What could be the problem and should I do another water change? I also have some medicine leftover from the 6 months ago curing ich, should I use that medicine again?

please help.


View attachment 1472429

I should mention that I only added two leaves, I mean those aquatic leaves into the water tonight.

Is the tank cycled?

 

[professorjimjam]

yes I think so. the tank is running since May 2021. there are a lot algae, snails have reproduced sufficiently and still reproducing and excess of them are being eaten by puffers, and also when there are fish poops, the ammonia is zero and nitrite also zero, only nitrate is around 5ppm. these are the signs that makes me believe that tank is fully cycled.

 

[Rtc/tsn]

yes I think so. the tank is running since May 2021. there are a lot algae, snails have reproduced sufficiently and still reproducing and excess of them are being eaten by puffers, and also when there are fish poops, the ammonia is zero and nitrite also zero, only nitrate is around 5ppm. these are the signs that makes me believe that tank is fully cycled.

When you do water changes what do you dose the water with to clean it? It’s possible you overdosed on conditioner. My mom did the same thing the other day and I’m currently trying to get the tank back under control

 

[professorjimjam]

thank you Rtc/tsn. you are probably right, I used Tetra AquaSafe Plus and not sure if I overdosed it. but it is possible, should I do a water change to fix this?

 

[professorjimjam]

I am doing a water change 50% to see if it would fix the issue.