TwoFish
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Hi! I have a 10 gallon tank with a couple of plants and five black phantom tetras, a male dwarf gourami, and a female honey gourami.
Parameters are <.25 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and 5.0 nitrate. The slightly elevated ammonia is due to a serious bio-load crash after I treated fin rot on the phantoms too aggressively. I did daily (or more) water changes for about two weeks (ugh) and then have been able to cut that back to about every other day for the past five days. I've been using Seachem's Stability to try and boost the system.
All of my fish seem really healthy after the initial *oh my god they are all going to die!* shock when I saw what my Ammonia levels were at.
But I've noticed in the past two or three days that my honey gourami is spending an awful lot of time at the surface. I know both she and my dwarf have labyrinth organs so they do breathe air and I do see the dwarf up at the top on the rare occasion, but she seems to be spending maybe 75% of her time at the surface. Particularly she hangs out at the place where the water runs into the tank from the filter.
When I first noticed it a few days ago I thought maybe she was just stressed after the constant daily water changes, but it's been almost two days since a water change and she's still spending a lot of time up there. Outwardly she appears fine and she is still browsing around the plants and investigating the ornaments when she does come down from the top.
Any thoughts? Just an odd fish habit or a sign of impending illness?
Parameters are <.25 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and 5.0 nitrate. The slightly elevated ammonia is due to a serious bio-load crash after I treated fin rot on the phantoms too aggressively. I did daily (or more) water changes for about two weeks (ugh) and then have been able to cut that back to about every other day for the past five days. I've been using Seachem's Stability to try and boost the system.
All of my fish seem really healthy after the initial *oh my god they are all going to die!* shock when I saw what my Ammonia levels were at.
But I've noticed in the past two or three days that my honey gourami is spending an awful lot of time at the surface. I know both she and my dwarf have labyrinth organs so they do breathe air and I do see the dwarf up at the top on the rare occasion, but she seems to be spending maybe 75% of her time at the surface. Particularly she hangs out at the place where the water runs into the tank from the filter.
When I first noticed it a few days ago I thought maybe she was just stressed after the constant daily water changes, but it's been almost two days since a water change and she's still spending a lot of time up there. Outwardly she appears fine and she is still browsing around the plants and investigating the ornaments when she does come down from the top.
Any thoughts? Just an odd fish habit or a sign of impending illness?
