My fish are all swimming at the top of the tank! They wont go down hardly at all. It cant be amonia because I changed the water 3 days ago. The tank is 55 gallons wih 7 african cichlids and 2 plecos in it.
2007-07-03 10:17:56 · 6 answers · asked by Amanda 2 in Pets ➔ Fish
I dont have any water test kits or anything. My domminant fish died a couple weeks ago. I dont over feed them at all. I barely feed them as it is because thats what the guy said. I put some amo lock in it and i guess its working now. The fish are back at the bottom and middle.
2007-07-03 11:31:12 · update #1
I would check you PH I would suspect that its either spiked or crashed, the fact they're at the top would suggest a crash, this can happen if you've used tap water and the buffer they use to make it palatable has broken down all of a sudden, or you've used distilled water which has no buffering agents in there.
Once you've checked the PH, do a partial water change and check again. you will need to check tomorrow aswell, and check the source of your water. It maybe that you will need to leave the water to stand for 24 hrs or so before doing a water change to ensure that any buffering agent has disappeared and the new water is stable before doing the water change.
Of course if its spiked and ammonia is present in the tank the damage is increased I'm guessing that African Cichlids you are actually talking about Rift Valley which have a Ph around the 8 mark, if so either way up with ammonia can be a killer for burns and a crash is a killer.
If any of the above is the case then you should get hold of something called PH up or down so you can balance your water pre change.
AJ
2007-07-03 10:38:37 · answer #1 · answered by andyjh_uk 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Amanda, simply just changing the water out, especially if it was just three days ago, doesn't completely rule ammonia out. I think it's only going to take you 2-3 minutes to just run a test and check. What are these cichlids you have? Are they all different species? I can't see any causes from the plecos, so I'm trying to use a process of elimination. The problem here why I don't look at the population is, if it was someone trying to take over or terrorize another group, some of them should be staying on the bottom near thier rocks and caves, so by you reporting them all at the top, I'm thinking it's something in the water chemistry. Check your ph, and your gh as well. Thats general hardness if you don't have a gh test. At least look at your ammonia, nitrites and ph please first.
JV
Ok so that pretty much means your problem was ammonia, but treating this with ammo lock is not the answer. Ammo lock does NOT take ammonia out of your water, it just makes it less toxic is all. You need to allow time for your bio filter to build up. And if you add ammo lock then you're not going to get a reliable reading on your ammonia, please stop using this.
2007-07-03 17:27:57 · answer #2 · answered by I am Legend 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Take a look at a stream. Water looks clear, right? Would you drink it? Why not, the water is clear? You don't trust your eyes to drink water, so why would you try to eyeball your tank? It is called an ammonia spike for a reason. Get some ammolock or prime and quit feeding them so much food.
2007-07-03 18:12:56 · answer #3 · answered by fivespeed302 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It sure as heck can be ammonia, the only way to know is to test it. Sounds like they are getting poisoned either by ammonia or nitrite. More water changes are in order and you need to test the water to know for sure what you are dealing with.
2007-07-03 17:21:24 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
maybe they are not getting enouph oxygen. I took my fish to a vet when they were doing that and that's what she said
2007-07-03 18:00:26 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
i think it is amonia
2007-07-03 17:20:30 · answer #6 · answered by always right 6 · 0⤊ 5⤋