Gasping in the morning - too many fish?

[dapellegrini]

What a learning curve moving from a standard low-light, lots of fish hobbiest to the world high-light planted aquariums!

I have been running a automated/pressurized CO2 system into tank for a bit less than a week now, and this morning I noticed that my fish where all gasping (I am guess for lack of oxygen)...

I have dropped in an airstone just under the spraybar to try and get some air relief to the fish and it seems to be working, though slowly...

My tank is still very young in this incarnation and the new plants that I have added may not be fully adapted and happily producing enough O2 to take my fish through the nighttime.

I figure I must be having this problem for 1 of 2 reasons. Either my tank is over stocked (quite possible) or my plants aren't happy enough yet, or both. So while I figure that out, is it best to turn the CO2 off at night, or turn an airstone on at night? Other options?

For those of you that have not been following all of my questions/posts, this is a 72g tank with a Rena XP3 canister. On the outflow side I have a Reactor 1000 and an inline heater. Also have the SMS122 pH meter regulating my CO2 tank, set to a pH of 7.0 in water that is 6dkH. Without injection the water's pH is around 7.9.

 

[MiamiE]

Thats a nic size red tail shark and clown loaches!

 

[dapellegrini]

Ya, I read somewhere the the lifespan for the rainbows in an aquarium is around 5-6 years. I have had the 2 large clowns and the rainbow shark for going on 10+ years now.

The large Pleco seems to be the biggest waste of fish capacity right now and I am trying to find him a new home.

 

[MiamiE]

Plecos once that big release a LOT of waste. I saw a shark this weekend at my LFS that was easily 2' long maybe more. I dont see the rainbow sharks in any of your pictures though. I do see a red-tail.

 

[dapellegrini]

A Red tail shark only has a red tail, where rainbow sharks have all red fins:

http://www.aquafriend.com/modules.p...le=article&sid=83&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

I have never heard of a Rainbow getting to 2'... Maybe you are confusing it with a black shark?

http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_morulius.php

 

[MiamiE]

Wow thats some nice information there. The shark that was that big was a Columbian shark. They had 2 of them and they were HUGE. I know they dont grow that big but these were HUGE, the owner of the store is the one who told me.