# Heavy Breathing...Mixed Melafix & Flourish



## smclark49 (Jun 24, 2007)

Just notice my fish are breathing heavily. All tests appear to come back normal.

110g Tank
20-22 fish
900 gph in filtration
Live plants

Added Melafix this morning around 9 AM to treat a couple of fish that pretty beat up (40 mL). Added my Flourish Excel this afternoon around 1:30 PM (20 mL). I noticed they were breathing pretty heavy around 3:00 PM.

Is there a known issue with treating both in the same day?


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## bernreuther (Jan 29, 2007)

Check your aeration. I had a filter return slide down the glass once and didn't notice it, so when I melafixed it there wasn't enough O2 exchange and two of my favorite fish died and everyone else was gasping. I tossed a HOB filter on to churn the water at the top and they were fine within ten minutes. Whenever I medicate now I lower the water level and take all the necessary steps to be sure there's extra O2. It might be that all you need to do is angle up your spraybar a bit to get some more gas exchange.


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## smclark49 (Jun 24, 2007)

I'll try that, but none of them seemed to have moved any. I'm running the XP-5 & a C-360. The spray bar for the XP is about a 1" below the surface and aimed at 45 degrees to the surface. The return on the C-360 is angled 45 degrees on the horizontal and is about 1.5" to the surface.

Should I hold off on the Flourish while in my Melafix dosing phase?


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## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

Definitely make sure there's plenty of aeration... definitely worth adding a powerhead spitting air bubbles when medicating. I've got a 10x turnover in filtration on both of our 75g tanks, and when treating with Melafix/Pimafix, the recently added powerhead made a *huge* difference.

-Ryan


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

Fish who are being harrassed will breath heavily so if they're still in the tank with the aggressor that may be what's causing it.
Is it just the fish that were beat up that are now breathing heavily?

You tested for ammonia and it came back 0? 
Check the media in the filters as well to make sure there's not a build up of waste on any of them.

Robin


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## PaulineMi (Apr 3, 2008)

I've used Melafix in the past with no problems. However the last time I added it all of my fish were sucking air at the top of the tank. Googling "Melafix lowering oxygen levels" brought up a lot of reports of Melafix causing oxygen depletion on occasion. Apparently it's an inconsistent phenomenon.

Advice from this forum helped with the suggestion that the water return bars and the power head be raised above the water level. That worked. I also did a water change and added new doses of Melafix each day to prevent Melafix build up.

I've used Melafix since and all's been well.


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