fish drink and / or breath air on top of water. skimming if you will. why is that?:?

A

aRSON1999

New member
now and again, mostly now. when i first got it all set up.(its meen months now) is the water dirty? i change every couple of weeks or so.
60 gal tank, magnum 350 canister filter. i have medium african and south american ciclids.
they get along well, and the filter does somthing like 600gal's an hour. maby only thing would be some kind of aireation set up. bubble stick or a pirats chest with air activated movement.
 
No, they don't, but top feeders will do something that looks like this, which is really just scoping out the surface for food. Certain fish, like betta's and gouramis can breath air, but they only do this if the water is oxygen deprived, otherwise they use their gills most of the time. In a tank lacking in oxygen they will go to the surface in an attempt to find more, because deeper water has less of it.

Your tank should have water movement, including disruption at the surface of the water. It doesn't matter if this is from an air pump or power filter, as long as it is there.

If you do your water changes every two weeks, your tank would normally be ok. But we don't know what your set-up is, and if your tank is overstocked then it probably is dirty.
 
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