doing water change was RIGHT thing to do
if they were gasping for air at surface, sounds like amonia or nitrite problems ( which is normal when cycling.) unfortunately your cycling with fish. just keep doing your water changes ( with dechlorinated water ) and read the test kit directions carefully, and test water daily. you should be getting some readings, if all results were 0 i would retest and make sure i was doing tests right.
and in my opinion i would not play around with PH, the key is to keep PH steady not jumping all over the place.fish dont like drastic changes.
hope this helps |