Too Little Surface Movement

My fish gills are moving really fast, I thought it was because of excess co2, but today I was going to lower it and discovered It was shut down, I measured co2 and It is around 9 ppm. Since I recently got a canister filter and the return of water goes to a rainbar that is located on the bottom of the aquarium, the surface movement is very little.

Could my fish be sofocating from a lack of oxigen, surface movement increases the co2 loss, but do we need certain amount of surface movement to maintain a fish load.
So i increase the surface movement, but then i have to increase the bubble rate of co2 to maintain 20-30 ppm because more co2 will be lost, there must be a point of equilibrium, were i have enough movement so the fish have more 02 from surface movement plus the 02 produced by the plants and the increased bubble rate maintains an adecuate level of co2.
Does it make sense?

 

Re: Too Little Surface Movement

Well I found out on my own, I increased the water movement using a power filter during the light period, increased the bubble rate and my co2 is at 35 ppm at the end of the light period and fish are not gasping at the surface and seem happier, and the reactor is off at night.

 

Re: Too Little Surface Movement

Yes, today my fish are definitely better, turning the co2 off at night is helping and the surface movement during the day keeps things allright, I don't leave it during the night because the whisper power filter makes a lot of noise, but maybe I will consider having a powerhead near the surface of the water to strirr things at night.

Maybe we need a lot of surface movement to really lower our levels of co2 so our little solutions just help fish.