Urgent help needed Fish gasping for air

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DudleyD

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I moved my livestock over to a new tank about a month ago and all went suprisingly well. About 3 days ago I saw a white spot or two on my regal and as a preventative measure connected my ozoniser to my skimmers air intake. All still ok. This morning I added some mushrooms to the tank and swithched off the 4 powerheads to allow them to setlle - had alll been removed off some LR.
About 3 hours later I noticed my one cleaner doing the death dance in my tank and my one yellow tang gasping for air and stuck against the overflow mesh with no energy to move.
Anyway I stopped the ozone and turned on the powerheads and added airstones and there seems to be an improvement. I have however lost a small goldie and my yellow tang although looking a bit better is not well. Could it be the ozone or lack of circulation. It seemed to happen very suddely. I had fed the fish an hour earlier. Was running the ozone on 50mg/h - max on the small hailea ozoniser.
 
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Hey, I heard a story about when they had a faulty ozoniser at Uskaka a few years back which pumped too much ozone. The sharks were apparently gulping air at the surface.
 
It feels crap - I havent lost a fish for ages - other than two that jumped ship..just hope my regal, purple and other two yellows are ok..
 
is your skimmer on? its a great way of getting o2 into the water again.

point some of the powerheads upwards to create additional surface action and check you water temp too. leave the ozone off for a while and get oxygen into the water, your fish should recover fairly quickly though.
 
crispin said:
is your skimmer on? its a great way of getting o2 into the water again. point some of the powerheads upwards to create additional surface action and check you water temp too. leave the ozone off for a while and get oxygen into the water, your fish should recover fairly quickly though.
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All on. Let the powerheads suck in air to make more "bubles"
 
Could it be the ozone or lack of circulation
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Quite possibly a combination of both - the lack of water movement could have resulted in the O3 not "blowing off" through surface agitation, and the O3 could then have harmed the livestock. O3, being highly oxidative, would react most aggressively with the gill tissue of the fish (like breathing in chlorine gas...), "burning" the gills and thus reducing their ability to take up oxygen.

I don't know what your tank water temperature is, but if above 25°C then (as an emergency measure) I would suggest that you drop it to 23°C (or 2°C lower than normal. This will slightly increase the water's ability to hold O2, and that might help the fish. Also, point the power heads to the surface of the tank, to increase gas exchange to the maximum rate possible.

Good luck, but don't expect too much - if their gills are severely damaged it will be a long, difficult path to full recovery, if at all...

Hennie
 
Reef Maniac said:
the O3 could then have harmed the livestock. O3, being highly oxidative, would react most aggressively with the gill tissue of the fish (like breathing in chlorine gas...), "burning" the gills and thus reducing their ability to take up oxygen.
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Thats what I think happened!
 
You can also add some fresh carbon to help remove the ozone which should be in place at your skimmer outlet to adsorb the residual ozone leaving the skimmer. Like lighty said the ozone probably damaged gill tissue causing the shortness in breath
 
Well my other tangs made it - so far. Will see who else made it during the day when they come out from hiding.
 
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