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I just did a 10% water change and my blue tetras look like they're surface breathing. I have a 33g long, heavily planted, with an airstone. Can ph change cause this behavior. I know that the change in ph that i made was more than it should have been. Will my fish be ok? How long would it take them to adjust?

A ph change can increase stress levels in fish, which could in turn cause surface breathing.

That's one reason most of us try not to change the ph at all. How much are you changing it with each WC and why? It might be possible that you don't need to ajust the ph at all. Post us some numbers and we might be able to help you out with that issue.

For the fish now. I'd suggest reducing other stress causing factors and increase oxygenation. Make sure the airstone you do have is turned as high as it will go if it's a variable speed one. You can also try removing some of the water from the tank an inch or so should do fine, hold that water in your WC bucket and just add it back later.
Also, turn off the tank lights and keep the lights in the room dim or cover the tank to darken it. Fish generally calm down at night (obviously not if their nocternal ). Be sure to check in from time to time to make sure they're doing okay.

My fish will sometimes nibble the surface a bit right after a water change, it did surprise me the first few times I saw it happen.

^_^

It could be the pH change. It is probably, most likely, a stress thing. My fish were okay when the pH went from 6.0 to 6.2 in one night(don't know how that happened).

I suggest googling your problem like typing it in and sometimes you can find forum posts with the similar, if not exact, problem with answers.

Good luck and hope all goes well!
-FS

10G- 6 Zebra Danios, 1 Upside Down Catfish
20G- 1 Goldfish
72G(maybe95)- Need Stock suggestions

After an hour or so they were fine again. I was using DI water so therre also may have been less oxygen available.My ph was about 7.8 and i'm gradually lowering it to about 6.5 for the purpose of replicating my fishes native environment(i have a few dwarf rams and acaras along with some tetras and catfish). I understand that most fish can adjust to live at different ph and other values, but i'm looking to make my tank as authentic as possible. I think the change will be ok but i should make it more gradual.The change i made was from 7.8 to about 7.