HELP!!! ALL MY FISH ARE LAYUNG AT THE BOTTOM AND BREATHING HARD

[CookeRS]

I've had this happen to me on a 10 galon tank. I thought "PH" before I even opened the forum.

Get your PH back up, usually best to not change parameters dramatically in short time, you might not have luxury of time on your hands...

Check your DKH, get a test for that if you can. If your DKH is at the right level, then your PH should be more stable.

Same goes for airation, always ensure that there is surface agitation on the top of your tank (get a circulation pump or make sure your return pump is powerful enough). This will also reduce chance of PH drop.

Lastly your Ammonia could have also gone up with that PH drop, you'll probably need to do a few water changes over the coming days.

Good luck.

 

[CookeRS]

Sorry for late post I realise you've already been working on this for 8 hrs. [emoji39]

 

[Lbrod126]

Have you done anything recently to that tank within the last month? Added something new, changed anything? Sometimes it can take a while for you to notice the problem happening I would do a massive water change and recheck all parameters.

 

[Forsaken77]

I thought fish go to the surface for more oxygen?

 

[GoPitt88]

Wow! I was on the edge of my seat reading this! Glad you figured it out and the fish have recovered [emoji16] Good job [emoji106]

 

[glb]

+1 Good idea! I think ill set up motion detectors that blare an alarm when they recognize him.

Sure! shoot me a PM if you want the details. He used a cup.

 

[SallyWho]

Man, reading through this thread was a wild ride! If my brother had done something like that, he would have cause to regret it. Sounds like he and the buddies he was trying to impress get skimmer cup and filter sock cleaning duties for the rest of the summer!

 

[curiouser]

Good to hear the fish are OK.
Don't need low oxygen to explain events (although can't exclude it). Elevated CO2 and low pH affect vital physiological functions. Rapid respiration in current situation may be solely from attempt to get rid of CO2 and raise pH. But in a high CO2 environment provided by the dry ice the gradient between fish blood and tank water inhibits or prevents this.

 

[OriginalUserName]

I bet it did look pretty cool. I'm surprised you didn't see major losses, that's great to hear.

 

[saintsreturn]

First day logging back into this forum in a while and wow! What a roller coaster of a read to come back to! Glad your fish recovered!

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Man that really sucks, my personal worst family thing was when my cousin (age: 16) dumped an entire can of freshwater fish flakes into my reef to watch my 1 clownfish eat it. Nitrates went through the roof. Managed to save the livestock, but it was a huge pain and lost most of my corals. This was years ago though.

 

[NMdesertReefer]

Man I was reading every post as fast as I could until the fish started doing good, what a thread.

 

[oceanrider]

Glad you acted quickly and saved the tank. What’s the update on all livestock ? I imagine that for short periods of time livestock’s can manage as oceans sometimes go thru stagnant currents which causes CO2 buildup .


Dry ice is pure carbon dioxide which has been cooled down to solid form. It skips the liquid physical state As the solid Co2 is dropped and sank to tank bottom, it starts converting to the lighter gas phase and this gas bubbles to the top . These large bubbles add upwards motion to the whole water column.
-So the CO2 that is dissolved is moving to top of aquarium
- CO2 has a natural tendency to exchange and exit seawater at the surface. And O2 goes the other way and dissolves back into ocean.
This is a result of complex physical chemistry and has to do with partial pressures and surface tension and dissolved gases.

And that is the reason the fishes went to bottom. Because the oxygen was mostly concentrated at the bottom of the tank while CO2 was at top and exiting water

Remember. Even though most of the dissolved CO2 exited water quickly theu bubbles , there was a lot of CO2 that dissolved into the water which quickly saturated the top layer It takes time for this saturated gas to exchange and exit saltwater Thus the surface layer was the “bottleneck” which limited CO2 from exiting quickly.

The bottom of tank had more oxygen. But it was a relatively finite supply and it’s renewal was being limited at the air surface as the air surface has a concentrated CO2 layer also ( great advice from others for placing fans and opening windows )

Adding hydrogen peroxide was a good idea but it would have been better to add it deeper down below the surface layer. Maybe a few inches To help the fishes breath better

Your clownfishes and cowfish are very active animals and this also have a higher need for oxygen

The high water temperature at 83 deg also limited oxygen perfusion
There is a gradient where higher temps reverses the favourable gas exchange but I don’t know what that temp is


All very good advice overall




If I were to immediately do a water change I would siphon the top layer which had the most CO2 And not the mid or bottom layer

 

[MSB123]

Glad you acted quickly and saved the tank. What’s the update on all livestock ? I imagine that for short periods of time livestock’s can manage as oceans sometimes go thru stagnant currents which causes CO2 buildup .


Dry ice is pure carbon dioxide which has been cooled down to solid form. It skips the liquid physical state As the solid Co2 is dropped and sank to tank bottom, it starts converting to the lighter gas phase and this gas bubbles to the top . These large bubbles add upwards motion to the whole water column.
-So the CO2 that is dissolved is moving to top of aquarium
- CO2 has a natural tendency to exchange and exit seawater at the surface. And O2 goes the other way and dissolves back into ocean.
This is a result of complex physical chemistry and has to do with partial pressures and surface tension and dissolved gases.

And that is the reason the fishes went to bottom. Because the oxygen was mostly concentrated at the bottom of the tank while CO2 was at top and exiting water

Remember. Even though most of the dissolved CO2 exited water quickly theu bubbles , there was a lot of CO2 that dissolved into the water which quickly saturated the top layer It takes time for this saturated gas to exchange and exit saltwater Thus the surface layer was the “bottleneck” which limited CO2 from exiting quickly.

The bottom of tank had more oxygen. But it was a relatively finite supply and it’s renewal was being limited at the air surface as the air surface has a concentrated CO2 layer also ( great advice from others for placing fans and opening windows )

Adding hydrogen peroxide was a good idea but it would have been better to add it deeper down below the surface layer. Maybe a few inches To help the fishes breath better

Your clownfishes and cowfish are very active animals and this also have a higher need for oxygen

The high water temperature at 83 deg also limited oxygen perfusion
There is a gradient where higher temps reverses the favourable gas exchange but I don’t know what that temp is


All very good advice overall




If I were to immediately do a water change I would siphon the top layer which had the most CO2 And not the mid or bottom layer

Fish are doing great! No problems as far as I can see. Thanks for the info!

 

[MnFish1]

Someone with more knowledge correct me here - but - I dont think adding CO2 (which is what dry ice is) would decrease oxygen levels at all (but it will change the percentage of O2 vs the percentage of CO2 in the water). It will lower pH It will 'suffocate' the fish - but - it shouldn't change oxygen levels. Adding H2O2 shouldn't help much if at all (i.e. you cant add enough H2O2 to compensate. The best thing is to open windows, and let the CO2 off gas on its own. Adding buffer could make things much worse as the CO2 off gasses. Again - correct me if I'm wrong.

By the way - I know the OP solved his initial problem - was just a question - my guess is he will have problems with the amount of buffer he added in a bit of time....

Also - I dont think the Co2 on the top of the tank O2 on the bottom makes sense unless there is no flow in the tank - otherwise - this shouldn't happen.....