# All my fish are breathing really heavy after water change



## rollin75 (Apr 4, 2009)

Hello

I need some help with this problem. First let me start by saying the tank is almost 2 years old. I was the original owner of it, then 1 year ago I sold it due to me moving to Florida. I spent one year in Florida and then my job moved me back home to NJ. When I moved back here I went and visited the guy who bought my tank. He was not taking care of it at all it looked like. You could not even see through the tank it was so dirty. I bought the tank off of him and got my tank and fish back those that lived through those conditions. I brought them home about 2 weeks ago. When I brought them home I put new water in the tank and put the fish in and they were perfectly fine. Now 2 weeks later today I decided to change the water. I changed about a third of the tank and cleaned out the rena xp3 filter. After putting new water and hooking the filter back up all the fish were on the bottom of the tank breathing really heavy. Now about 30 minutes later they began to start swimming around however they are still breathing really hearvy. What went wrong and what should I do?

Please help as I am clueless, I added Stress Zyme, Stress Coat, Cycle, Salt, & African Cichlid conditioner.

What now?


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## klumsyninja (Aug 14, 2008)

rollin75 said:


> I added Stress Zyme, Stress Coat, Cycle, Salt,* & African Cichlid conditioner.*


I'm guessing that the previous owner didn't maintain PH and your fish are just adjusting to the PH change of the african cichlid conditioner.

They'll get over it but maybe do it gently from now on to make sure there's no drastic changes in the water levels

(my guess, maybe others will know better)

Good for you for getting it back and making right


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## fancy diver (Mar 21, 2009)

Yoooo! I would not advise doing a water change and a filter cleaning all at the same time. it also sounds like your putting alot of chemicals in there as well. If the 2nd owner wasnt maintaining the water than the fish arent going to take well to all that immediate water quality change. Get yourself water test kits or bring in water samples to a pet store. Instead of those dechlorinators get a product called prime by seachem it is the best rated. I hope you didnt overclean the bacteria balls in your filter. it should be kept in a bucket of tank water while you clean the filter media.


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## klumsyninja (Aug 14, 2008)

I'm assuming that you didn't change all the water and totally clean out the XP3 filter too because that would do a number on the bio filter that was established.


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## klumsyninja (Aug 14, 2008)

*fancy diver* : you totally ninja'd my bio-filter response, lol!


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## rollin75 (Apr 4, 2009)

The tank is 55 gallons and when I took the filter out I only cleaned the sponges with water from the tank. I did not change any of the bio balls or stars. I checked levels and they seem ok for now.

PH 8.2
Ammonia .50
Nitrite 0

Now they seem to be swimming around and moving better however they are still breathing heavy. I shut the light off the tank that way they can relax better.

Should I feed them tonight or just wait till tom?

Just want to say thank you to everyone responding to me.

Your all a great help and a great fish family.

I appreciate all your comments...


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## fancy diver (Mar 21, 2009)

You should have 0 ammonia in a properly cycled tank. The fact that you have any is definately reason to be concerned. the only thing that there should be traces of is nitrate this shows that the bio filtration is not working well. Read about this stuff in the library section of this site. ammonia/nitrite very bad, Nitrate not the worst thing in small doses keep below 20 ppm, can only be lessened by water changes/very hard to completely remove.


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## fancy diver (Mar 21, 2009)

Also It is not neccessary to clean the sponges in tank water. clean the heck out of those in sink water just make sure your bacteria stays in tank water


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## rollin75 (Apr 4, 2009)

Okay it is now around 8:30pm. I have checked all the levels again and they remain the same. I am wondering if I should do another water change this time not vacuum the gravel. I spoke with the place that I bought the fish 2 years ago and the manager there told me that it is probably due to the fact that the water hasnt been this clean and that they are in shock. I dont like the idea of the ammonia in the tank. I was wondering if anyone thinks that I should do another water change or just let it be for a while?


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## twohuskies (Mar 1, 2008)

If you're ammonia is still reading .50, then yes...I'd do another WC.


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## smellsfishy1 (May 29, 2008)

The ammonia is the problem.
You may have a nitrite spike soon to come so keep an eye out for that.

Get the prime and do the water change.
Prime will detox everything, including the ammonia,nitrite and anything in your tap water.
I would also make sure you get as much surface agitation going as you can.


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## 55gal (Jan 19, 2009)

Changing the water all at once I am sure shocked the **** out of your fish it most likely caused a lot stress because of the drastic change in water conditions.

In the conditions that you described gradual water changes 20-25% over the course of a few days, and checking the water parameters as you went along would have been easier on your fish

As far as vacuuming, I would not vac all at once, maybe ........... 20-25% at a time every 4 or 5 days along with checking my water parameter as you go along

Keep us posted

Good Luck!


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

If the fish are breathing harder directly after a water change then they are not reacting to ammonia in the water. When fish are suffering from ammonia poisoning a water change will usually alleviate their symptoms--just temporarily but you will definitely see an improvement.

IMO your tap water likely contains *chlormamines* and for that you need a declorinator that binds the free ammonia otherwise you will see your fish stress after every water change and the bigger the water change the bigger the stress. After a few hours+/- the bio filter will process the free ammonia but you really don't want to put your fish through even a few hours of that kind of stress.

Seachem Prime, Amequel Plus and a number of other declorinators work on chloramines. Check out the article linked below for more information on declorinators and chloramines.

Robin

ANd don't misunderstand me: everything everyone has said about ammonia needing to be 0 is absolutely correct.


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## frank1rizzo (Mar 14, 2005)

I would like to add:

My area has really high CO2 levels in the tap. When I do a waterchange, I drain 1/3 of the tank and refill, but leave the water level low for about 45 min to let the canister output really churn the new water. After 45, I fill to the top.

If I skip this step and fill the tank strait up, the fish will breath heavy, and even congregate at the surface depending on how bad the tap was.


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