95 gallon tank ??

Question
HI
I have a 95 gallon tank with approx 40 chichid in it.I just got them 3 days ago and I have a question regarding proper air flow in the tank. The first 2 days I had them, I just ran 2 canister filter a Eheim 2217 and a 2213 and thats it. Well today I woke to find the fish at the top of the tank and not active. So I put a outside filter that shouts water into the tank causing bubbles into the tank, after 10 min the fish were doing much better. Could it be that the canister filters do not put enough air in the tank? or does it sound like another problem? I was thinking about getting a bubble wall instead of the outside filter as that 3 filters in one tank,  Thank you for your re-ply ,Tina

Answer
Hi Tina,
  You put 40 fish in a brand new tank?  Please tell me that isn't right....   

  You definitely need a bubbler/air stone of some form in the
tank immediately.  That will solve the short term problem.  The medium term problem is that in about 2 weeks you are going to have a massive ammonia problem. Basically those fish are going to produce a lot of waste but there aren't any bacteria in the tank to take care of the waste so you are going to see a lot of ammonia. Most likely your water will go very cloudy for several weeks.   

  What you need to do is to start a problem of water changes. If I were you I would change about 10 gallons every day for the next few weeks.  Do not wait for problems to appear because when they do appear they will hit quickly and you could lose all 40 fish at once.   Basically what you will be doing with the water changes is buying a little time for the good bacteria levels to build up in the tank to handle the ammonia.  

  If you know anyone with a fish tank, consider getting about 5-10 gallons of water from their tank and dumping it into your tank; that will also help build up the bacteria more quickly.  

  Best of luck.  In the future, please don't add that many fish to a tank at once.  

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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