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View Full Version : Treating fish with possible Hypoxia Ammonia/Nitrite Poisoning


Opah
04/12/2010, 08:19 AM
Hi All,

Situation
I just got several fish through mail order. Most of them are doing fine but I am concerned with a tuskfish. I floated the bags for 15 minutes and started drip acclimating them. When I opened the bags some of them smelled very bad. After about 20 minutes of dripping I decided to add some amquel to the buckets. The tuskfish was shipped with about 3 gallons of water. All the fish seemed to react fine except the tuskfish. About 15 minutes after adding the amquel, the tuskfish was gasping at the surface. I checked that salinity was the same between my tank and the bucket and since it was I got him in a small plastic bucket and put him in the tank. I did not realize amquel sucked up oxygen and the acclimation instructions specifically said do not aerate. It's been about 60 hours since I started acclimating them and the tuskfish is still gasping at the top.

Tank setup and filtration
I have a centralized system with about 800 gallons of water. The entire system has been up for about 4 months but parts of the system have been running for more than a year
Main Filtration
Orca Pro II protein skimmer
33 gallon wet dry
Lifeguard mechanical filter (only about 2 weeks old)
Lifeguard 900 Fluidized bed (only about 2 weeks old) (run heavy aeration at inlet and outlet)
60 gallon refrugium (growing various macros)
40 Watt Emperor Aquatics UV Sterilizer
4 penguin 280 HOB filters
1 Marineland Canister filter
Aqua C Remora Protein Skimmer
Aqua C Remora Pro Protein Skimmer
Various sponge filters, small UV filters etc...
150 lbs liverock
80 pounds live sand (refugiums etc)
remote dsb (5 gallon bucket)

I perform about 40 gallons per day water changes by siphoning out the bottom of each tank.

Parameters
PH 8.2 - 4.4
Ammonia 0 (API)
Nitrite 0 (API)
Salinity 1.020 (refractometer)
No other tests although I plan to get some salifert tests today

On this specific tank
The tuskfish tank (40 Gallon long) is connect to the main system. The tuskfish is the only fish in the tank Tank water turns over about 4 times per hour. In addition, I have the Aqua C Remora pro, penguin 280 and magnum canister filter connected directly to the tuskfish tank. Lights over the tank have been off although room lights are on.

Question
Is there anything else I should be doing? I assume the problem is due to hypoxia. Should I bother trying any chemical treatments like methyl blue?

Thank you for reading this long post. Tried to add all possible relevant information.

Opah
04/12/2010, 05:20 PM
Just got some new Elos tests and I calibrated my pinpoint PH monitor. Looks like the fish is getting better.

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate barely detectable

PH 8.00

Chris27
04/13/2010, 08:18 AM
Really the only thing you can do is get the fish in well oxygenated clean water and cross your fingers...good luck.

It's definitely important not to stir or put an airstone in water that a fish is shipped in, there is ammonia in the bag, but it's not toxic at a low pH, once oxygen is added, the pH goes up and the non-toxic ammonia becomes toxic in short order.

oct2274
04/13/2010, 05:46 PM
it's possible that the fish's gills were burnt by ammonia as well.

Opah
04/13/2010, 06:16 PM
The fish definitely appears to be getting better. It is swimming around the tank towards the bottom. He still gasps a bit on occasion. I think it may be when he gets nervous. I am keeping the lights off on it's tank for a while and trying not to scare him. Does a fish recover from ammonia burning of it's gills?

Thanks for the input.