africans gasping

[Brisch]

I have 3 african cichlids in my tank that no matter what I treat with, never stray to far from the surface of the tank. I have upped the KH and added salts and treated with prazi pro and super ich. If you have any ideas of what else might be causing just these 3 to do this please let me know. The tank is a 90 gallon running an FX5 and a Fusion 600 air pump

[skrick]

Try creating more surface bubbles

[Brisch]

ok will do

[Dough]

are they the only fish in the tank? maybe they have some major gill damage? how long have you been adding salts. maybe they still need to heal? good luck. oh one other think check the amonia levels. you are running an fx5 which is a big filter for that tank. you prob dont clean it for months at a time. maybe the levels are too high because you dont have the water volume to support the long interval for cleaning. I have had lots of babie africans die in the past few months and found out that the amoina levels were to high for that simular reason. Good luck.

[darb]

Test your water parameters and make sure they are fine, ammonia can burn the gills I believe.

Are they breathing fast? Try and get a look at the gills to see if they look reddened, maybe bacterial infection.

There are more than these three in the tank and the rest are behaving normally?

[Brisch]

Im testing levels as I type, there are about 25 other fish in the tank non are behaving weirdly. The gills are not red and the adding of more surface bubbles doesnt seem to have done anything. My other fish breed regularly and have amazing color, which Charles will vouch for. Ill post parameters once they have processed.

[Brisch]

I do weekly 20 gallon water changes
GH: 31 degrees
KH: 8 degrees
PH: 7.4
NO3: 40ppm
NO2: 1ppm
AMN: 0ppm
Ok so clearly my problem is Nitrite and general hardness. Ill do another 20 gallon water change tomorrow morning as its has only been 4 days since the last. I will test everything again once I have done the water change and adjust the parameters accordingly.

[tony1928]

Yeah, the nitrates are definitely too high. I think you will need to up the water changes due to the bioload. Without knowing more, it seems like you've got quite a few fish for a 90g. Also, adjust the hardness gradually to the proper level. Some fish react poorly to high nitrates though in my experience, Africans are generally pretty tough fish.

[Mferko]

i'd do a 50% change i always try to keep nitrates under 20ppm, that should take your nitrite down to 0.5 and nitrate to about 20ppm
make sure to add your KH buffer too

[Brisch]

my tests show that 40 ppm nitrates is within the safe numbers