# Piranhas Gasping For Air?



## Ethics (Dec 16, 2004)

What does it mean when a piranha is swimming at an angle at the top fo the tank. He will do this for about 30 secconds then go swim around like nothing ever happened. Is there something wrong with him?

Thanks,
Mario


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## mashunter18 (Jan 2, 2004)

Hey Mario,

Check your water perimiters....

Ph
ammonia 
nitrite
nitrate

Very well could be a ph crash..........

That would be the first step to troubleshot the problem......


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## Ethics (Dec 16, 2004)

Going to check them as soon as i can im not at home right now but I will rush there asap. Will they survive if it is a PH crash? and how can it be prevented?

Thanks,
Mario


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## mashunter18 (Jan 2, 2004)

Your fish might be perfectly fine, if they were all huddled up gasping continously my guess would be ph related, Iv had a few crashes before were ph went below 6, never found out why, my fish were fine.

I would always reccomend checking your basic water perims, when somethig like this happens, it s a good starting point to trouble shot the problem. Also looking at the fish body real good for anything out of the ordinary.

It is pretty typical of them to hit the surface occasionally then swim on, but gasping for 30 seconds seems a bit unusual.....


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## Ethics (Dec 16, 2004)

thanks for the replies I will check everything out down to the tee once I get home. They only seem to do it every once in a while, maybe once every 20 minutes, and it's only 1 fish that does it, the other 2 are fine.

We'll solve this problem tonight hopefully.

Thanks again,
Mario


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## ronzz (Oct 26, 2004)

hi check that there is alot of surface agitation from your filter if the water is still on the surface then i would add a powerhead for more oxygen


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## Ethics (Dec 16, 2004)

Hey,

I checked all my parameters and their fine, im pretty sure it's the water aggitation, so I put in 1 more smaller powerhead, a big one and a bubble wand.

They seem to have stopped hanging around the top of the tank now, hopefully that's what it was.

Thanks,
Mario


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## Wussola (Jan 25, 2006)

Schizophrenia?


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## piranha_guy_dan (Oct 4, 2004)

they could have just been oxygen deprived. i dont run air pumps on my tank and i rely on the aqua clear filters to add oxygen and when the power goes out i have to make sure all the filters kick back on or else the fish have no oxygen and do the gasping you were speaking of

im glad they are ok now


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## Slim (Jan 9, 2005)

ronzz said:


> hi check that there is alot of surface agitation from your filter if the water is still on the surface then i would add a powerhead for more oxygen


This would be my best guess cause I just went through the same thing and lost 3 of my reds saved the other 4 it was a mix of PH to high and not much surface agitation at all. Like very little.


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