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Help - gasping fish


Paulochromis

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Hi all,

Just got to work and the wife has called to report that our Malawi cichlids are off their food and "gasping".

4ft bow-front tank (~180L water, 30L rocks), fish as in signature.

1 internal RIO powerfilter, 1 external Rena XP2 canister, 1 200W heater, 1 airstone.

I won't have too much time to check the forum today, so any suggestions for treatment should be sent to me at work (paul.lauranceATareva-td.com) or my wife at home (thelaurancesAToptusnet.com.au).

I suspect that the external canister filter may have "crashed" - not been cleaned for a couple of months now.

Cheers,

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The water parameters tested ok.

pH = 7.6

NH3/NH4+ = 0

NO2 = 0

NO3 = 60ish

The nitrates might be considered high, but we do weekly 30% changes so the nitrates normally vary between 20 and 80ppm (my nitrate test has varying degrees of orange/red to indicate levels, and buggered if I can tell the difference between 40 & 80!!)

The recent aquascaping we carried out would appear to have reduced the number of hiding spots available. So aggression was way up. The airstone tube had kinked, so much less in the way of bubbles and less disturbance at the surface so probably the combination of more exertion by the fish and less O2 was probably the problem.

Anyway, unkinked the airline and did a 45L water change (20%) and things would appear to be back to normal.

Have bought more rock and will be putting that plus a couple more airstones in this evening.

Thanks to those who replied thumb.gif

Cheers,

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