Need assistance/insight All fish in my 55gal -- labored breathing after WC

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ej6.sean

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Feb 20, 2011
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Did the monthly 50% WC, decided to clean my filter and recharge my purigen. Put the filter back in without the purigen, put new bio media. Also used tap water to clean a few plastic pieces in my filter. But I dumped all the filter water back into the filter hoping the tap water would not kill all of the BB..

Anyways.. after putting the filter (Cascade 700 canister) back the water has not cleared up and all my fish are breathing heavily. Usually it has been high ammonia but my ammonia levels are miniscule. I am puzzled as to what it could be.

Water parameters
Temp -80
PH - 7.8
AM - .10
Nirite - 0
Nirate - 10ppm
Fish in tank are as follows - 1 RTS, 1 pleco 7in-ish, Albino oscar, 2 porthole cats, 1 pictus, 4 corys, 1 sa cichlid, little skunk botia,



 

aussie pride

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Jun 21, 2010
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IMO, a problem will occur soon with your overstocking and ralative underfiltering. You should be doing more frequent W/C with stocking that heavy, like 25% twice or 3 times weekly. The O will need at least a 75g in the near future (6 months or so depending on the size your oscar is now), the pleco will need something along the lines of a 90g.

Now for the current problem, they are probably in a little bit of shock over the big clean and should recover if you do frequent water changes and the water will also clear up soon once the filter settles in and the water changes are more common.
 

ej6.sean

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IMO, a problem will occur soon with your overstocking and ralative underfiltering. You should be doing more frequent W/C with stocking that heavy, like 25% twice or 3 times weekly. The O will need at least a 75g in the near future (6 months or so depending on the size your oscar is now), the pleco will need something along the lines of a 90g.

Now for the current problem, they are probably in a little bit of shock over the big clean and should recover if you do frequent water changes and the water will also clear up soon once the filter settles in and the water changes are more common.
thanks for your response, I never had an issue with water clarity. But I will increase my WC frequency. Thanks again aussie.

And I plan on upgrading perhaps to a 120g in the future
 

ej6.sean

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Oh yeah forgot to ask does anyone have any personal experience recharging Purigen?? It's my 1st time doing it
 

aussie pride

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thanks for your response, I never had an issue with water clarity. But I will increase my WC frequency. Thanks again aussie.

And I plan on upgrading perhaps to a 120g in the future
Your welcome. Yeah water clarity becomes an issue in most tanks evry now and again. Yours may be a bacterial bloom from the recent W/C, heavy stocking, messy oscar and recent filter clean. A 120g would be suitable for the oscar, pleco, pictus, RTS and 'SA cichlid'. Do you know what that unknown cichlid is?
 

Slappy*McFish

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Clean your glass and see if that helps with the clarity at all. ;)
Try to keep the feedings down until the water parameters even out. I agree that you would do well to upgrade or add an additional filter.
 

ej6.sean

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Your welcome. Yeah water clarity becomes an issue in most tanks evry now and again. Yours may be a bacterial bloom from the recent W/C, heavy stocking, messy oscar and recent filter clean. A 120g would be suitable for the oscar, pleco, pictus, RTS and 'SA cichlid'. Do you know what that unknown cichlid is?
It is a Labeo Fuelleborni, and their breathing has subsided after a few hours thankfully, I'm going to do a 20% WC tomorrow morning

 

ej6.sean

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Clean your glass and see if that helps with the clarity at all. ;)
Try to keep the feedings down until the water parameters even out. I agree that you would do well to upgrade or add an additional filter.
Thanks this Oscar gets bigger and bigger everyday, its turds are huge, def need to consider a new filter anything you could recommend that would I would be able to use with a 120g perhaps Fluval 405?
 
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