Rapid Breathing

[Sirkus]

I have a couple of tanks in my room at least 120litres each,
The jewel 180:
has an external filter
few plants but plenty of java moss and anubias and bogwood
pair of kribs
pair of ctenopoma fasciolatum
2 ropefish
5 or 6 Staetocranus tinanti
3 boesmani rainbows
1 bristlenose

the 120 litre tank
well planted
fluval 4 plus with spray bar
loads of small bottom fish
loads of other little fish
terrestrial plants growing on the brace bars with water pumped from the tank

my problem is that the jewel tank fish (the Staetocranus, rainbows and kribs) are gasping within 4 days of a water change whilst the tank with far more biomass, all the fish are fine and i do far less water changes on it. temperature in both tanks is 24 deg. any suggestions why the jewel fish look like theyre suffering?

[dunc]

When was the last time you did a water change on the other tank?

It’s not just excessive chlorine is it? Sometimes the stench of the chlorine off my tap water is literally unreal – then other days it’s fine. Have you been dechlorinating?

[Sirkus]

i dont use dechlorinator, i had a tap filter that i plug onto the hose before filling up, does the job i think, i cant smell chlorine from the water anyways. the last time i did a water change in the other tank was about a week and a half ago.

[Matt]

Have you tried adding an airstone or some other form of surface turbulence mate?

[Sirkus]

yeah i have, im using a wee magi jet thing to stir it up at the top. they still seem to be breathing quite a bit faster than usual, especially for the low density of fish.

[dunc]

How much do you feed them, Kris?

Have you looked in the external filter recently?

When I put my daemon on a silly-high experimental growth feeding regime, they seemed fine for a while – filter seemed to cope – then they started breathing really heavily and a water change would only alleviate the problem for one to two days. Went to clean the filter out and it was literally full of fishy excrement. Got rid of that, gave the filter sponges a bit of a rinse in tank water then did another water change. Problem solved.

[Sirkus]

it seems marginally better today, fish are a bit more active. i think it may be the filter in take, it gets blocked up so easily. the filter itself seems good as i only cleaned it on the last water change. i think it might have been the growth food i was feeding them as im on bloodworm now and as i mentioned before, not so bad. thanks again.

[Matt]

Flake food is the devil for blocking power filters. S’why I hardly ever feed it lol.

[Sirkus]

i think i managed to work it out as being over feeding, i may have put a lil too much growth food in, it seems fine now that ive laid off the feeding now.

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