jetajockey- I'm pretty sure if I had a water problem it would have manifested itself before a year. I faithfully change it every week. There is no toxin build up. I become frustrated with this constant outcry that there is something wrong with the water, when in the end, it has always turned out to be something else that had nothing to do with it: That the fish got nipped in the fin by another fish, that the fish was too cold, or that it was actually normal behavior for that type of fish all along.
Okay, I'm not sure what you are talking about, are you referencing other situations or this one in particular? There is no 'constant outcry'. You might see people jumping to conclusions about water quality, but don't apply that to everyone, there are plenty of people here who have tons of experience and knowledge and actually do know what they are talking about.
Most of the time when there is a fish gasping issue it can be narrowed down to a water issue, so its important to rule that out. You assume your water is fine because you use RO/DI, but that doesn't really mean anything other than a clean water source. Toxin buildup still happens in tanks, even established ones, and I've seen tanks crash unexpectedly after years of being fine, so it is worth asking these simple questions.
People come here for help, and to get that help we need to know specifics to better understand the situation and give good advice. No need to get defensive about it.
Anyway, it was only one fish that was doing all the gasping and he appears to be better now. The rest did it for a minute and stopped. Lord knows what all that was about. I might have injured him when I poured in the water, I just kind of dumped it in this time. And it was cold. So that probably shocked him.
That's not what you said in post 7, you mentioned that multiple fish were still gasping a day later. It could be a shock thing, I guess, but I've had the same thing happen when adding unaerated water to a tank as well, so that was another possibility that I put out there. Usually though when it is a low dissolved oxygen issue, the panting thing goes away as the water becomes aerated.
It could be a simple temperature shock thing, I've never had that happen and I routinely do water changes with 10-15 degree differences just to induce spawning in certain species. A 20% water change doesn't change the temperature that much, if my calculator is working right a 60F water change of 20% would only drop an 80F tank down to 76F. But either way, best of luck with it.
