Too hot?

[MaffooJ]

Hello! As summer comes in, it really been getting hot both day and night. My black moor, comet, ryukin, and lion head goldfish are all hanging around the bottom, sometimes sitting. Is it because of the temperature change? My tank is usually 67F, but is 73F right now. If temperatures the problem, know any good ways too cool my tank down? I already shut of the lights and don't have a heater in. Any suggestions would be welcome!

 

[jlk]

Are these guys still in the same size tank?

73f is perfectly fine for fancies and I keep all of my guys inside in the 70-75f range without an issue (depending on the season). If your fish are bottom sitting and inactive, I would start with water quality issues first.

The warmer the water is, the higher the toxicity level of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. what type of wc schedule are you following presently? How are your parameters?

The second issue with warmer water is the oxygen level. The warmer the water, the lower the dissolved oxygen level. As goldfish are a large, heavy bodied fish, their oxygen needs are going to run higher than say a guppy or a minnow. Increasing surface agitation can help as can doing wcs with slightly cooler water. Keeping toxins at 0/0/less than 10 will also help as toxins can inhibit a fish's ability to acquire oxygen.

Lowering temps really is not an issue here unless you are seeing daytime spikes at or above 80f. Wcs with water a few degrees cooler, running a fan over the surface, keeping lights off and floating bags/bottles of frozen dechlorinated water can help. Hope this helps!

 

[treemanone2003]

^^^ totally agree with above to floating bags/bottles of frozen, dechlorinated water. In the event one breaks, leaks, etc, you don't have to worry about untreated water entering the tank. Also with the cooler temp (not a big difference) WC's. It takes less cooler water to cool a tank down than it does warmer water to warm a tank up. A fan blowing across the top is helpful as well as closing blinds, curtains, shades in that room and adjacent rooms to disseminate the heat factor from direct/indirect light sources.

 

[MaffooJ]

I change my water 50% every week, and i will test the water tonight. I thought that putting frozen bags of ice drops temperature to quick and puts them into shock? If not I will try that. Thanks for the help!

 

[MaffooJ]

Ok, I tested my water and I think I found the problem. My pH is at 6.0, which is strange since it is always at 7.5. It's too late to do a water change and will have to do so in the morning. Is there anything i could do overnight to raise it? Any help is welcome!!

 

[jlk]

Water changes as your tank has crashed. Unfortunately, this is an indication that your bioload is beyond your tanks capacity. The best thing you can do in the interim is frequent big wcs (as in every other to daily) until you are able to figure out better housing arrangements. You may also see big spikes in ammonia/nitrite as your good bacteria may have suffered ph shock and will need to recover. Please ask if you have questions!

 

[MaffooJ]

I graveled the entire bottom out today, and did a 50% water change. Didn't change the filter pad so bacteria can regrow if I lost it. They all seem to be getting much better. I have just a baby comet, which I wait to grow up a little until I put them into my pond with the big fish. Is this a good idea, or should I just put them directly in the pond? Other than that, I have a 55 gallon with a black moor, ryukin, and lion head. Should I still do 50% every other day? Thanks so much for the help!!

 

[jlk]

My comets are every single size imaginable and they all do perfectly fine outside with each other. If your comet is atleast an inch or so long, he will be fine outside! They actually adapt much easier to being outside when they are added when they are young. It's been my experience that the older the fish is when it's moved outside, the more difficultly they have adapting. Spoiled tank-kept fish will adjust but they handle it better when younger. Just take your time acclimating to the pond water and temp.

In respect to wcs, I would continue them daily until things stabilize. Once stable, test daily to see how many days it takes for the ph to start to drop and/or nitrates to jump. It may be two days, three days, four days, etc. As soon as you start to see a change, this indicates it's time for a wc. My guess is it will work out to be twice a week unless your KH and GH are very low from your tap. Have you ever had these tested (tap water)? It would be worthwhile to do so if you have a decent lfs near you! There may an underlying issue with them that may need to be addressed further.

 

[MaffooJ]

Alright, thanks for the advise! I think I will go get my tap water tested so this wont happen again. Thank you!

 

[jlk]

Sounds good! Keep us posted!!

 

[MaffooJ]

I think I found the problem to the pH drop. My tap water was fine, just got it tested. I recently turned off the lights in the aquarium to lower the temperature a couple degrees, but since my tank is planted my plants didn't get any light. This is what I read today:

"When CO2 is not present in sufficient quantity plants grow very slowly and will tend to stay smaller. Furthermore, biogenic decalcification can occur; this is, essentially, a last ditch effort by the plants to obtain CO2 by breaking down the salts in the aquarium water. As this process occurs, the pH level can raise a couple points in a fairly short period of time. This alone is stressful enough for the fish, but the problem worsens when the lights are turned off. When photosynthesis stops at night, the plants will stop breaking down these salts and the pH will drop rapidly."

If this is true, than that must be the case. All this happened the day after I turned off my aquarium light, and I now turned it back on. Any help is welcome!!

 

[SandyCheeks]

I think I found the problem to the pH drop. My tap water was fine, just got it tested. I recently turned off the lights in the aquarium to lower the temperature a couple degrees, but since my tank is planted my plants didn't get any light. This is what I read today:

"When CO2 is not present in sufficient quantity plants grow very slowly and will tend to stay smaller. Furthermore, biogenic decalcification can occur; this is, essentially, a last ditch effort by the plants to obtain CO2 by breaking down the salts in the aquarium water. As this process occurs, the pH level can raise a couple points in a fairly short period of time. This alone is stressful enough for the fish, but the problem worsens when the lights are turned off. When photosynthesis stops at night, the plants will stop breaking down these salts and the pH will drop rapidly."

If this is true, than that must be the case. All this happened the day after I turned off my aquarium light, and I now turned it back on. Any help is welcome!!

That sounds very reasonable. I am not an expert on plants but from what you posted it sounds very likely to have caused a change in ph.

The temp increases have been causing my GF to be very slow moving also. I find the ceiling fan helps a lot. And I added a big airstone.

It's challenging but fun to maintain a balance in these little watery worlds we have assembled for our finned friends.

 

[MaffooJ]

Haha, good to know I'm on the right track. I have set up a fan on top of some Guinness World Record books to cool down the tank. Thanks for the help!!

 

[jlk]

I think I found the problem to the pH drop. My tap water was fine, just got it tested. I recently turned off the lights in the aquarium to lower the temperature a couple degrees, but since my tank is planted my plants didn't get any light. This is what I read today:

"When CO2 is not present in sufficient quantity plants grow very slowly and will tend to stay smaller. Furthermore, biogenic decalcification can occur; this is, essentially, a last ditch effort by the plants to obtain CO2 by breaking down the salts in the aquarium water. As this process occurs, the pH level can raise a couple points in a fairly short period of time. This alone is stressful enough for the fish, but the problem worsens when the lights are turned off. When photosynthesis stops at night, the plants will stop breaking down these salts and the pH will drop rapidly."

If this is true, than that must be the case. All this happened the day after I turned off my aquarium light, and I now turned it back on. Any help is welcome!!

Exactly how heavily planted is your tank? Do you run CO2?

For something as described in your quote above to occur, there would have to be a tremendous amount of plants as well as a Co2 imbalance.

As I keep both fancies and well planted tanks, I have never encountered such a situation. Even with the lights off for days at a time in a tank that had almost as much water as plants. Ph changes do occur in anything well planted (tank or pond) and they can occur using CO2 as well.

However, in this situation, even an extreme number of plants would not cause a ph drop from 7.5 to 6- (we don't know the exact value as 6 is the low limit of the test). I still believe the issue here is lack of sufficient wcs possibly combined with tap levels of KH/GH that may be on the low side. Getting these tested will help!

 

[MaffooJ]

The tank only has 4 plants and I don't use CO2. They seem to be getting back on track and are active again. I retested the pH and it was at 7.0. I just don't get how it could drop like that since I have been doing the same water changing schedule for the past year and a half. The only other difference was that I introduced a 1 inch chinese algae eater into the tank about 3 weeks ago.

 

[Laser]

You may want to consider adding crushed coral or aragonite to help buffer your water against pH swings.

 

[MaffooJ]

I went to a petstore yesterday and bought some crushed coral. I haven't added it yet because I don't know how much to put in and where to put it.

 

[Laser]

Most people fill a mesh media bag and place it in their filter.

 

[MaffooJ]

That's perfect, as my filter comes with 2 media slots with bags. Thanks for the help!!