Fish staying at top of aquarium.

[Hopey22]

We have 8 guppies...2 old and 6 we just bought today. All of the tests come back good..normal Ph, water conditions are good, just recently did a water change, it has 1 big airstone and 2 filters, the temp is good. It is a 29 gallon aquarium. We are currently in the process of treating the tank with API brand t.c. tetracycline for fin rot. We have done everything as directed with the medicine.
For some reason all of the guppies are staying at the top of the water, all swimming in the same direction towards the bubbles coming from the air stone. When we put food in there they eat of course but other than that they don't really swim far from it. The tank is not over crowded at all.
Is this normal? Could it possibly have something to do with the medicine?

 

[Perrytheparrotfish]

I breed guppies and I have 6 adults that do the same thing. The go down to rest...when I get ip and turn the light on they are on the bottom sleeping and when I get home they are up at the top. I think it is normal.

 

[Hopey22]

Yeah I've seen them sleep. I always catch them at the bottom when I turn the light on. It's just weird, they have been at the top for like 5 hours! I'm worried something is wrong but everything is fine as far as we can see. And they are all going in the same exact direction and staying the the same spot.

 

[eco23]

What are your actual ammonia, nitrIte and nitrAte levels (the #'s)? I'm not sure about that particular med, but some nuke your bio-filter and can cause major toxin spikes which in turn cause fish gasping at the surface.

 

[Hopey22]

Both the nitrite and nitrate are at 0. Were not sure about the ammonia because we don't have an ammonia test kit. They don't really act like they're gasping for air. We also have baby guppies and they are swimming everywhere, like on the bottom and all through the tank. It's just the adults at the top.

 

[Perrytheparrotfish]

I don't test my levels at all. I haven't ever had to. Sorry

 

[eco23]

How often do you normally do water changes, and how large of ones do you do? You should see some degree of nitrAte unless you either have a heavily planted or an uncycled tank. How long has this aquarium been set up for?

Fin Rot is most always caused by poor water quality, and the cure often times is simply fresh, clean water. Medications should always be a last resort because there are always side effects ranging from killing your beneficial bacteria to simp,y being hard on your fish. I'd still have to believe if there is abnormal behavior, the medication and water quality / potential ammonia spikes are involved.

 

[Hopey22]

The tank has been set up since July..and the nitrate was probably about 5 on the strip.
We deactivated the medicine a minute ago by putting the filters back in. We did a 25% water change earlier because it was part of the medicine treatment. We probably don't do water changes as often as we should..we are going to start doing them every 2 weeks because we didn't know how dangerous it could be if you don't do them.

 

[eco23]

The tank has been set up since July..and the nitrate was probably about 5 on the strip.
We deactivated the medicine a minute ago by putting the filters back in. We did a 25% water change earlier because it was part of the medicine treatment. We probably don't do water changes as often as we should..we are going to start doing them every 2 weeks because we didn't know how dangerous it could be if you don't do them.

I'd definitely recommend picking up a quality liquid test kit like an API Master Kit. The strips are notoriously inaccurate, and in times like this it's important to have accurate results...especially ammonia. Based off the fin rot and their behavior, I'm virtually certain there's something that's going on with toxins which your test kit isn't seeing.

One of the best rules of thumb about aquariums is...when in doubt, change water. Any time I see something which doesn't look quite right to me, the first thing I do is give the tank lots of fresh, clean water.

You'd be shocked how much difference a good water change schedule can make to the health of your aquarium. Normally a 25% weekly pwc is recommended as the minimum. The fact they're not done that often definitely leads to problems like you're seeing.

So just give your fish lots of fresh, clean, dechlorinated and temperature matched water...they'll be happy, and you most likely won't have to deal with issues like fin rot. It's going to be very important to start immediately because of the medicine you used. Like I said, antibiotics will often times kill off the beneficial bacteria in your tank basically causing it to recycle. Make sure you pick up the test kit, test often and change water frequently. There's no such thing as too many water changes...and right now is probably a good time to start

 

[Hopey22]

We will definitely start doing water changes more..we just didn't think they were that dangerous if you didn't do them.
Thank you for all of your advice!

 

[davePM]

Probably a silly question but you said you " put the filters back in"? Did you remove the filters entirely or just carbon?

 

[Hopey22]

We removed the entire carbon filter because that's what the medicine said to do..

 

[LyndaB]

You never want to remove your filter media entirely, because you can lose the majority of your beneficial bacteria by doing so. This is why I love filters that have a separate bag of carbon alongside bio media so you can fling the carbon if necessary. Many people don't use carbon at all in their tanks.