Fish are yawning

[toor.attar]

Hey everybody, I have some fish in my tank that keep yawning occasionally. I have a 55 gallon with 2 clowns, a small butterfly, small tang, and flame hawkfish. I had the tank running with the clowns for a couple months then added the baby tang 2 weeks ago and a week after the butterfly and hawkfish. I think I may have added them together too fast?? My ammonia spiked its a lil high. The Red Sea test shows around 0.2 could be less than that tho. I have been doing water changes, feeding less, and adding Amguard just to be safe. All my other parameters are okay tho, but my fish keep yawning. They are eating fine, are active, grazing on the rockwork, but their gills are moving faster and are yawning. I’ve been adding seachem stability and pristine to help with the bacteria and ammonia, is there anything else I can do to get the ammonia to around 0? What can I do to stop the fish from yawning? Please let me know thank you

 

[Reef.]

Stop with all the potions, unless you have something big, dead and rotting in the tank, your ammonia is more than likely fine, ammonia tests are not that great.

You are more then likely doing more harm than good.

Ammonia is part of the cycling process, you need it to keep the cycle going, adding chemicals to remove it is probably detrimental.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

If you can get a video of the “yawning” that would help, but that description is often a symptom of gill flukes.
Prazipro can be used to treat those.
Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

No need to add Amquel which will do nothing for the tank other than a temporary lockup of nitrate mainly.
Same applies to been adding seachem stability and pristine . Pristine is also an alternative and not a solution as it is temporary and if you find yourself adding stability- It is an indicator you should not be adding fish.
As Jay stated, the yawning is one of many signs of flukes such as yawning, clamped fins, inflamed gills, darting, scratching to name a few.
I suspect you may be getting false ammonia readings and what kit are you using?
A video of at least 20 seconds under white lighting will be helpful.
For prazi, you will first want to add an airstone as Prazi reduces oxygen. Apply initial dosage known as an interval for 8 days, do a water change and do one more 8 day dose interval

 

[toor.attar]

No need to add Amquel which will do nothing for the tank other than a temporary lockup of nitrate mainly.
Same applies to been adding seachem stability and pristine . Pristine is also an alternative and not a solution as it is temporary and if you find yourself adding stability- It is an indicator you should not be adding fish.
As Jay stated, the yawning is one of many signs of flukes such as yawning, clamped fins, inflamed gills, darting, scratching to name a few.
I suspect you may be getting false ammonia readings and what kit are you using?
A video of at least 20 seconds under white lighting will be helpful.
For prazi, you will first want to add an airstone as Prazi reduces oxygen. Apply initial dosage known as an interval for 8 days, do a water change and do one more 8 day dose interval

Yes, those are the symptoms I am having with my fish. I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what stability is I just know your supposed to add some when you do a water change, add new fish, or when ammonia high, but I’ll stop dumping that and everything else in there.
Most of those are symptoms my fish are showing. They are scratching but very very minimal. They are darting occasionally, gills are kind of inflamed not really, but they for sure are breathing fast and yawning. The part I am confused is tho all of my fish are quarantined fish, why are they still doing this? Most of my fish I bought are from Dr Reefs Quarantined Fish and the small tang is from Tsm aquatics, all who specialize in quarantined fish. How could they still have flukes if they are already quarantined. Could there be something else maybe besides flukes? Thank you for the help

 

[toor.attar]

If you can get a video of the “yawning” that would help, but that description is often a symptom of gill flukes.
Prazipro can be used to treat those.
Jay

I will send a 20 second video of them.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yes, those are the symptoms I am having with my fish. I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what stability is I just know your supposed to add some when you do a water change, add new fish, or when ammonia high, but I’ll stop dumping that and everything else in there.
Most of those are symptoms my fish are showing. They are scratching but very very minimal. They are darting occasionally, gills are kind of inflamed not really, but they for sure are breathing fast and yawning. The part I am confused is tho all of my fish are quarantined fish, why are they still doing this? Most of my fish I bought are from Dr Reefs Quarantined Fish and the small tang is from Tsm aquatics, all who specialize in quarantined fish. How could they still have flukes if they are already quarantined. Could there be something else maybe besides flukes? Thank you for the help

Stability is like Amauri and prime- water conditioner/dechlorinator
With those signs- treat with prazi

 

[toor.attar]

Yes, those are the symptoms I am having with my fish. I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what stability is I just know your supposed to add some when you do a water change, add new fish, or when ammonia high, but I’ll stop dumping that and everything else in there.
Most of those are symptoms my fish are showing. They are scratching but very very minimal. They are darting occasionally, gills are kind of inflamed not really, but they for sure are breathing fast and yawning. The part I am confused is tho all of my fish are quarantined fish, why are they still doing this? Most of my fish I bought are from Dr Reefs Quarantined Fish and the small tang is from Tsm aquatics, all who specialize in quarantined fish. How could they still have flukes if they are already quarantined. Could there be something else maybe besides flukes? Thank you for the help

This is the best video I could get. If you look closely you can see them breathing hard, I couldn’t get a vid of them yawning tho. Like I said I catch them occasionally do it.

Here is a pic I took my tank that caught one of my clowns yawning. They are eating perfectly fine, are all active, very bright in color, my parameters are fine too besides a lil bit of ammonia.
Please let me know if something is wrong or I can do anything to help them, thank you.

 

[fk3212]

Fish do not yawn, at least not the way we do. They do open their mouths sometimes, but that is typically to attract mates or deter aggressors. They do not breath in the same way we do, since they do not live in an environment of air. Water passes through gills, allowing the fish to absorb it. This means that they need to open their mouths and swim in order to increase their oxygen saturation.

 

[toor.attar]

Fish do not yawn, at least not the way we do. They do open their mouths sometimes, but that is typically to attract mates or deter aggressors. They do not breath in the same way we do, since they do not live in an environment of air. Water passes through gills, allowing the fish to absorb it. This means that they need to open their mouths and swim in order to increase their oxygen saturation.

I know they don’t yawn the way we do but why are they doing what they are doing? They aren’t fighting with each other and they are way too small in my opinion to be attracting mates lol.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I know they don’t yawn the way we do but why are they doing what they are doing? They aren’t fighting with each other and they are way too small in my opinion to be attracting mates lol.

Fish do “yawn” when they have gill flukes, it just isn’t for the same reason as it is with mammals.
I think you should treat for gill flukes with a Prazipro.
Jay

 

[violetjones]

Hi Dan,

You issue is likely either stray voltage, water contamination, or low oxygen.

You should send your water in for an ICP test. They sell triton tests on Amazon.
You should send your water in for an ICP test. They sell triton tests on Amazon. This will help rule out water contamination.

Also do you have lots of surface agitation at the top of the tank? Could you please post a video of your flow including a top down looking into the tank. Also do you have a protein skimmer? This will help us rule out the oxygen issue.

 

[toor.attar]

Hi Dan,

You issue is likely either stray voltage, water contamination, or low oxygen.

You should send your water in for an ICP test. They sell triton tests on Amazon.
You should send your water in for an ICP test. They sell triton tests on Amazon. This will help rule out water contamination.

Also do you have lots of surface agitation at the top of the tank? Could you please post a video of your flow including a top down looking into the tank. Also do you have a protein skimmer? This will help us rule out the oxygen issue.

At the moment I do not have a protein skimmer, but I do have lots of surface agitation, a lil too much I think personally lol.
How do I do the Icp test? Are the triton and icp tests different??
Since you said stray voltage, I think maybe that could be an issue, sometimes after working with one of my pumps or something before I put my hand in the tank again I get shocked when I touch the water…. And it happens often.

 

[violetjones]

At the moment I do not have a protein skimmer, but I do have lots of surface agitation, a lil too much I think personally lol.
How do I do the Icp test? Are the triton and icp tests different??
Since you said stray voltage, I think maybe that could be an issue, sometimes after working with one of my pumps or something before I put my hand in the tank again I get shocked when I touch the water…. And it happens often.

Hi @toor.attar

The above post was intended for another thread. Not sure how it got posted here.
Tangs should be fed every day. So don’t do chasing numbers by decreasing feeding times.

To combat ammonia I would add a bottle of dr.tims one and only saltwater - this will add more nitrifying bacteria. It is a one and done type of thing so once you add it one time you should be good.

i would definitely add a protein skimmer - this will help with oxygenation and the fish waste issue. Bacteria consumes oxygen in the water and the protein skimmer also helps skim out excess bacteria.

 

[C4ctus99]

At the moment I do not have a protein skimmer, but I do have lots of surface agitation, a lil too much I think personally lol.
How do I do the Icp test? Are the triton and icp tests different??
Since you said stray voltage, I think maybe that could be an issue, sometimes after working with one of my pumps or something before I put my hand in the tank again I get shocked when I touch the water…. And it happens often.

If you get shocked sometimes, I would definitely trace that out, the fish aren’t grounded really so it should not do much to them, but it can be dangerous for you and maybe point to an equipment issue that needs to get fixed