# Oxygen?



## animal_soulkisser (Apr 29, 2005)

can too much oxygen in a freshwater tank be harmful? My water is slightly cloudy, caused by tiny air bubbles. my fish also look a little bloated. not sure if it's from over feeding or too much oxygen? is that possible? i frequently test the water and all is good as far as the chemistry. 
thanks !


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## osteoporoosi (Jan 27, 2005)

Are you shure there isn't any other gas in the water?


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## animal_soulkisser (Apr 29, 2005)

no, definitely not sure... how do i determine if that's the problem and what type of gas it might be?


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## fishfreaks (Jan 19, 2005)

i dont think there is such a thing as too much oxygen in a tank, but of course there always is to little.


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

No, there cant be too much O2 in a tank. But it can be unsightly. This happens when you first do a waterchange or have an airstone (not needed in most cases). It can hurt plants though.


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

Check water parameters such as Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates.


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

> can too much oxygen in a freshwater tank be harmful?


If they are in the form of microbubbles YES. Please read the link here.
http://www.oxyedge-chum.com/diffuser,_oxygen_bubbles.htm


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

It is not a common problem to have too much actual oxygen in the water, as getting more oxygen to dissolve into the water once the saturation point has been reached is a tricky thing to do. However, yes, if it were to somehow happen, it can cause problems. You'd pretty much have to bubble pure oxygen into the water or run the water through a pressure chamber to get high enough a level to do any harm, though, but before that the fish would probably enjoy it very much. So, long story short, don't worry about this. Like simpte said, a tank prety much can't GET too much oxygen in it. 

However, other dissolved gases such as nitrogen or carbon dioxide can cause serious problems, and cause them fast. Naturally, of course, it's a lot easier to get a dangerous oversaturation of these than an oversaturation of oxygen. 
One common source of deadly gas buildup is cavitation. make sure that none of your water hoses have any kinks in them. When water rushes through the kinked part of a hose, weird things happen. You can see this for yourself by kinking a clear hose and seeing the bubbles form, or you can even hear it by kinking an ordinary garden hose.

Some skimmers create their bubbles by using frothing impellers which create the bubbles by cavitation. This works only because the bubbles are then allowed to vent out into the atmosphere in the skimmer chamber. A kinked hose, though, instead forces the gas back into solution, wreaking possible havoc.

In this case, since the water chemistry checks out okay, I'd say that this tank is not suffering from gas imbalance. That's just a guess, but I think it's a good one. Fish can and do bloat from gas oversaturation, or even get little bubbles under their skin, but then again they can bloat for lots of reasons. The first thing to do is determine if the fish are actually bloated. Can anything be done about the excessive amount of bubbles in this tank? If the blaoting disappears within a week of the removal of the bubbles, then that's a pretty good clue .


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## mlefev (Apr 19, 2005)

Is your tank in a place where you can turn off the hood and let in natural light? I thought mine was cloudy, but it was actually miniscule bits of brown algae with heaps of oxygen bubbles attached. That's always something to consider.

If the fish aren't acting ill, you'r probably still ok, but here's a trick I've learned over the past week or so. Go to a fabric store or k-mart, wal-mart (although I hate them) and buy a half-yard or so of light cotton or muslim fabric. Place pieces of that around or under your filter and fasten it with a rubber band or whatever you can. Most pollutants, whether bacterical, fungal, or from the natural decomposition of plants, will be caught in the cloth and it will begin looking gray. It lets the water and air flow still, but captures smaller particles that your filter might not be equipped to handle. that potentially could clear things up. It only costs a few dollars and will last for years, compared to expensive filtering systems.


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