HELP!!

[BMahura]

So i decided to reaquascape my 50 gallon tank and everything is now going downhill. After reaquascaping my tank yeasterday morning my water peramaters arent doing so well. i did a 10% water change after aquascaping was done. Last night my ammonia was at 1.5ppm, my nitrites were at 0.3ppm, and my nitrates were at 0. Today my fish seemed to be doing fine with the exemption of a damsel dieing. I did another 10% water change today and added a bit of seachem prime. my parameters are now almost 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, but i now have 15ppm. My yellow tang is having lots of problems, its breathing really heavy and is laying on the sandbed, all my other fish are breathing heavy as well. i put my yellow tang in a tub with a drip of antibacterial medicine which gave him a little energy but he is back to laying on the sand bed.
I need help and any advice would be great.
Thanks.
Brett

[ottoman]

I guess they need more oxygen. Try add a air pump for a few days see if it helps. Good luck.

[eli@fijireefrock.com]

it seems you got few problems going.
1st what type of water are you using (tap or RO)
by reaquascaping the entire tank you stirred the chemistry that maybe was going fine in your tank.
Don't move the fish to a tub or pail and don't add any other chemicals as this only adds more stress to your tank.
i would add an air hose to the intake of your return pump and if you have extra power heads run them into your tank with air hose simple to add as much oxygen as possible and i would keep the lighting to minimal for the time being until all settles down.
If you need moving your fish to another tank i have no problem holding on to them until all parameters are in check.

[MKLKT]

Seeing as it's summer now how are the temps in your tank? Ammonia and Oxygen levels can alter when the water heats up both in directions that aren't great for the fishes health.

[Aquattro]

When you get readings like that, which is very possible after moving everything around, a 10% water change isn't going to cut it. I'd do at least a 30g change, and again after a day or two if that didn't settle things down. 10% is really useless to combat this type of thing.

[ScubaSteve]

Ya, 10% ain't gonna do anything. After I scaped recently I had a cycle like you and I had to do two 40% changes just to get things back to normal.

[cathyg_99]

as long as you can match the ph and salinity you can do a 40% without it affecting the fish