Swimming Problems

Thank you for your information. It was very helpful.

Lisa

"Russ Arcuri" wrote in message
news
In article yEoxd.4692$Qk5.2807@lakeread04, "JL"
wrote:

We just did a 20% water change in a 40gal tank. Within minutes the
swordtail began swimming funny. It's as if she can't keep her balance.
The
only thing I had on hand was QuickCure. I put the normal 20 drops per
gal.
(tetras in tank). Any one know what may cause this and how/if I can help
her?

There are a few possibilities. The first one that springs to mind is
gas saturation. Water in your tap is under pressure, and may be
saturated with dissolved gasses. If it goes straight from the tap into
the tank without much agitation, the gasses may come out of solution and
form microbubbles in your fish through the gills, which could, in an
extreme case, kill them.

This would be most noticeable if a freshly-poured glass of water looks
cloudy for a short time before clearing.

The solution is to agitate the water after it leaves the tap but before
you add it to the tank. I spray water into a five-gallon bucket using a
vigorous stream from a sprayer. Then I let it "age" for a day or two
before using it for water changes.

This method has the added advantage of allowing the pH of the water to
settle down a bit. Water comes out of my tap at pH 8.8 - 9.0, but after
a couple days of aging (usually with an airstone agitating the water in
the bucket) it settles down to pH 7.2 or so. This is because some
municipal water supplies add something to the water to make it more
alkaline (and therefore less likely to pick up trace amounts of lead in
older water systems that contain lead supply pipes). This evaporates
out of the water over time after it leaves the tap.

Russ


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