Lake Malawi Species • Does a 55g tank require a bubbler

[Rainbowshark]

So I have a 55g tank with a breeding colony of demasoni cichlids and sometimes it seems like after one the females gets chased around a bit by one of my males it seems like their golping in huge amounts of water into their gills. So I was wondering do I not have enough oxygen in my tank? And if so would a bubbled fix my problem?

[cheerio]

how does the water look at the surface? can you see ripples on the water? if the water is still on top, than i would suggest a bubbler. from what you explained it seems that the fish is just winded from being harassed. a bubble probably wont fix it if the problem is the harassment, but it wouldn't hurt to have extra oxygen

[DJRansome]

Check the amount of your filtration, how many gallons per hour do you have?

Check your filter return...is it disrupting the surface of the water sufficiently? You might be able to re-direct and get more oxygen.

Check your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Nitrite can cause the fish to gasp.

And cheerio was right as well...a harassed fish will lurk just under the surface of the water. Maybe the oxygen is fine and you have aggression issues?

[Rainbowshark]

Well I know I have aggressive issues, and now I have enough filtration(had to take one of my filters off my 55 to filter a little 10g fry tank I setup because I had a holding female.) but I did finally replace the missing filter but I don't think the surface of the water gets broken up enough.oh and I have three filters on there that supposedly filter 150g an hour each.

[Rainbowshark]

Oh and before I forget my ammonia is o ppm or whatever the measurement is and my nitriTes and nitrates are fairly low.

[DJRansome]

Nitrite needs to be zero or that is the problem. Nitrates can be higher and still be OK.

Are your filters recently cleaned? The flow can slow down when debris builds up.

If you know you have aggression issues...how are you going to fix the problem?

[Rainbowshark]

well I'm planning on putting my fry back into the big tank as soon as their large enough to spread out the agression but my nitrites are above 0 so i think ill need to bring those down thanks for the comments!

[nmcichlid-aholic]

If you removed an established filter, you probably had an ammonia spike - which would be the cause of the nitrites being present. If your ammonia is showing 0 already, that is a good sign that your bacteria colony is catching up, so just do about 50% water changes daily or every other day at the most until nitrites are 0 and nitrates are around 20 or less. That should help with some of the gulping you're seeing.

You are bound to have some aggression with dems, but if you notice one or 2 individuals are consistently the targets of the aggression, it may be time to remove some extra males (either the targets or the dominant fish - preferably the targets).

[Rainbowshark]

Thanks that's a good idea my nitrates are 25 so I think I need a few more water changes... But I don't plan on removing any more males because I've already got rid of 3 of the 6 I originally had.

[DJRansome]

If you are still having females harassed you may need to take action of SOME kind in order to head off an illness that will infect the whole tank.

Don't forget when you add fry you will probably add males.

Nothing wrong with having one male now if it keeps your females healthy because you know you will add a couple soon.

[Rainbowshark]

yah it was my nitrates because i got them down to 0 and no more gulping