Re: NANFA-L-- Gasping for air
EELReprah-in-aol.com
Mon, 12 Jun 2006 15:40:24 EDT
The oxygen level is either too low or the fish are suffering damaged gills.
The former may be due to too much biological load (fish, bacteria or whatever).
The latter may be due to either osmotic shock or chlorine in the water.
Changing more water may be the answer to the former but may aggravate the latter.
Time to evaluate what led to this condition - unusual events, new
introductions, temperature changes, water changes, etc. Diagnosis may require measuring the
TDS (indirectly a measure of osmotic pressure), measuring the chlorine in the
water used to change it (may be too late after the fact), or just reducing
the number of fish. In any case there is no quick answer. If not too bad, fish
can recover from gills that have been damaged by osmotic pressure changes or
chlorine. Just don't aggravate it by repeating the cause. I did this once when I
noticed some barbs acting in this manner and so I changed more water, not
realizing the water company had increased the chlorine and I was not neutralizing
all of it. The fish died when attacked the second time with chlorine.
Lee Harper
Media, PA
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