Fish breathing fast?

[AydenLincoln]

What exactly is salt creep?

When water evaporates it leaves behind the salt that doesn’t evaporate. And you are topping it off with fresh RODI water daily to compensate for the loss if not your salinity becomes way too high. You can do it manual daily or get an automatic top-off the better option.

 

[AydenLincoln]

And I should also ask how old is the tank? And how long have the fish been in it?

 

[immaman2011]

When water evaporates it leaves behind the salt that doesn’t evaporate. And you are topping it off with fresh RODI water correct to compensate for the loss if not your salinity becomes way too high. You can do it manual daily or get an automatic top-off the better option.

Blue reef chromis died can't find some other fish either. Going to do a water change

 

[AydenLincoln]

Blue reef chromis died can't find some other fish either. Going to do a water change

What is your salinity at? You do top off you tank with freshwater right or have an automatic top off?

 

[1ocean]

What exactly is salt creep?

sometimes when water splashes on things that are not under water, like tank edge, tank lids, sump edges and then the water dries and leaves salt behind, And as time goes on the constant wetting and drying makes the dry salt creep grow...

 

[immaman2011]

What is your salinity at? You do top off you tank with freshwater right or have an automatic top off?

Just checked with my refractor meter and it says 1.0245 ish.. between 1.024 and 1.025

 

[AydenLincoln]

Just checked with my refractor meter and it says 1.0245 ish.. between 1.024 and 1.025

Okay that’s good! We can rule out salinity being the cause.

 

[immaman2011]

Okay that’s good!

Yeah but ph is still reading extremely low. It's right after I started dosing melafix/pimafix and the liquid garlic.

 

[immaman2011]

Okay that’s good! We can rule out salinity being the cause.

I have my own rodi system with tds of 0 so I'm going to use that. I'm mixing a 5 gal bucket of reef crystal salt now.

 

[1ocean]

Yeah but ph is still reading extremely low. It's right after I started dosing melafix/pimafix and the liquid garlic.

I been doing some research while we been chating...liquid garlic causes breathing issues...why are you dosing liquid garlic? if you want to entice fish to eat you have to add it to the food. If your adding it to control ick,,,,that is an old wise tale...

 

[immaman2011]

I been doing some research while we been chating...liquid garlic causes breathing issues...why are you dosing liquid garlic? if you want to entice fish to eat you have to add it to the food. If your adding it to control ick,,,,that is an old wise tale...

I added to tank directly because I didn't know how to soak food.

 

[1ocean]

I added to tank directly because I didn't know how to soak food.

stop adding it to the tank....I am sure others here would agree. I would just put that stuff on a shelf for a while and get back to basics. Feed them the food as it is packaged as see what happens for a few weeks, hopefully a water change will get rid of some of that garlic . Also the ph of liquid garlic is around 6.0 to 6.4 and sometimes as low as 3.7 or less. So this may also be adding to you ph issue.
When people use garlic, they just put a drop on the food and let it sit for a ten minutes or so, then feed the fish. Again, I hope this helps and I am just offering suggestions to what I have learned through the years from other on this forum and others...

 

[immaman2011]

stop adding it to the tank....I am sure others here would agree. I would just put that stuff on a shelf for a while and get back to basics. Feed them the food as it is packaged as see what happens for a few weeks, hopefully a water change will get rid of some of that garlic . Also the ph of liquid garlic is around 6.0 to 6.4 and sometimes as low as 3.7 or less. So this may also be adding to you ph issue.
When people use garlic, they just put a drop on the food and let it sit for a ten minutes or so, then feed the fish. Again, I hope this helps and I am just offering suggestions to what I have learned through the years from other on this forum and others...

That is what sped up the decline of my tank then. A PH crash over 2 days with an outbreak of ick is definitely going to kill some.

 

[immaman2011]

Okay that’s good! We can rule out salinity being the cause.

I have a 36g bow tank. With expensive reef lighting white, blue, and green hues. All fish right now are babies/juveniles and I am upgrading to a 75g tank to move some adults later on.

Blue reef chromis dead
Royal gramma 50/50 survival
Sharknose goby 50/50 survival
Can't find flameback pygmy angel
All other fish are returning to a more normal breathing rate for the ones I can find and shrimp have perked up.

I'm assuming these 2 fish went into shock as well as the angel. The wrasse survived she is breathing normal now too. I'm trying to find the angel and then make sure the diamond goby is okay too as he's under rocks in his cave.

 

[immaman2011]

stop adding it to the tank....I am sure others here would agree. I would just put that stuff on a shelf for a while and get back to basics. Feed them the food as it is packaged as see what happens for a few weeks, hopefully a water change will get rid of some of that garlic . Also the ph of liquid garlic is around 6.0 to 6.4 and sometimes as low as 3.7 or less. So this may also be adding to you ph issue.
When people use garlic, they just put a drop on the food and let it sit for a ten minutes or so, then feed the fish. Again, I hope this helps and I am just offering suggestions to what I have learned through the years from other on this forum and others...

Flameback angel died
Blue reef chromis died
Royal gramma still 50/50 more alert will know tomorrow.
Had to pull out all rockwork to get to them
Everyone else pulled through thank God. Lost like $90 of fish over my mistake but I guess it could have been worse.

 

[vetteguy53081]

You only need a drop of garlic when used.
Look at water quality with heavy breathing
I’d do a water change and replenish carbon to start with

 

[gbroadbridge]

I tested again and again but can't figure out why I have a sudden HUGE ph drop. I mean just ph. Ph dropped from 8.0-8.2.....to below 7.4. Was it because I used too much liquid garlic? I know garlic has a ph of like 5.8 so maybe I ****** up by putting too much garlic concentrate in with food. I didn't soak but added directly. I added some baking soda to tank water and mixed to dissolve it and added it slowly to high flow area. That only pushed it up to ph7.7. Should I let it settle until tomorrow night and retest everything?

0 ammonia
0 nitrites
20 to 40 nitrates
Mag is 1150
Cal is 480
Ph was below 7.4 fish started breathing hard. I got it up to 7.7 but don't know how low it actually was cause test only goes to ph 7.4 minimum.
I don't have any alk test kits which is probably dumb on my part but I have everything else.

Any advice guys? This on top of the ick outbreak a few days ago is probably not going to be good.

Add aeration with some airstones.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Add aeration with some airstones and add a lot of GAC

 

[sfin52]

No it’s because the disease is probably progressing and the best course of action would be removing, quarantining, and treating with cooper. Also the fact that you added baking soda to the tank is probably not helping the fish who are already weakened/sick. Also it’s worth noting you want to add anything slow and steady and not dump it in for instant results.

Ask questions before assuming

The better option would’ve been and still is a large water change or increasing your skimmer. Do you have a quarantine tank? What size is your display tank and how old is it? Can you set one up? You need to quarantine and treat with cooper then to be 100% safe go fallow in your main tank for around 76 days or drain the tank fill it with hot freshwater and start the cycle over.

Ask questions get answers before offering advice

And can you post photos of them? Not videos they don’t load on smartphones.

Recommend up loading to youtube than posting link r2r this is more helpful

That sounds more like velvet possible. Ick and flukes typically take more time to kill a fish/show major symptoms. What are you using to test your water?

No pics where given and no info about fish looks

When water evaporates it leaves behind the salt that doesn’t evaporate. And you are topping it off with fresh RODI water daily to compensate for the loss if not your salinity becomes way too high. You can do it manual daily or get an automatic top-off the better option.

This is not salt creep.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Wow - lots of activity on this thread overnight!

I see the video of the Gramma breathing slowly and very deeply - that is NOT a sign of velvet.

Sorry to hear about your losses, they may have continued since your last post. My conclusion, if I understand the timing on all this, is that the oils in the Pimafix and melafix and/or the garlic, reduced gas exchange in the tank, causing the pH to drop due to carbon dioxide build up. Multiple large water changes (or moving the fish to a new tank) as well as adding huge amounts of aeration would solve the problem, but possible not before the fish suffer from anoxia/acidosis.

The only thing I question is - why were you dosing Melafix and Pimafix? Was there an on-going disease issue? If so, those two "tonics" are not very effective, so it is also possible that whatever you were trying to treat caused some or all of the problem.

Jay