Soft Water & fungal growth
anglerfishuk
Long time since I posted on the group but i am still active most
of my group reading etc being done on my smartphone ,
I am moving this year from my Liquid Rock water area to an area
that is Soft Water , and around 300 miles from where i am now ,
Obviously this means a total shut down of my tanks and restarting
in the new place ,
Currently my Fiancee has a 60 ltr tank running apart from Nitrate
being around 60ppm the other parameters are Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0
pH 6.0 -6.3
Currently the only occupant is a Synodontis Catfish , I did notice
however despite being fed very sparingly on Catfish pellets any not
eaten develop a fungal type growth round them in a very short space of
time , and by short I mean within a span of around 6 hours,
filtration is way over the top , as the tank when she got it came
with everything including the Fish filtration is being done by a
Fluval U4 , but I will sort that out when i move up there along
with all my other stuff,
My main concern is the rapid fungal growth , and what is causing
it , I have never worked with Soft Water with low pH being used to
Liquid Rock with pH around 8.0
Any suggestion greatly appreciated
Happy New Year to all
Regards
Andt
anglerfishuk
~pH7, Aquarium Ninja
Picture of my own moldy food gone brown:
http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb402/aquariumninja/DSCN0680.jpg
What you see there is rotten food. The brand is Spirulina 20
~pH7, Aquarium Ninja
NetMax
soup), so I would concentrate on getting the NO3 down to something
more reasonable (ie: 20ppm?) with some daily water changes.
Moving fish from very hard water (what is the actual hardness in dgH?)
to very softwater (need the dgH, and dkH would be helpful too). Their
gill cells will be stressed by the sudden decrease is osmotic
pressure, and if they explode, the fish's breathing capacity will be
significantly reduced, mostly permanently, leading to a greatly
decreased life span, and usually the onset of some disease.
Either start tempering your hard water to bring the hardness closer to
your destination, or take a lot of hard water with you and tempered it
down after you've moved. The last time I did this, I tempered the
hardwater down at the origin, since it was easier to bring softwater
to the source tank, and after moving, I don't want extra tasks, like
finding/transporting hard water to the destination tanks.
What are the fish? If still the Africans, they would survive the
move, else look at it as an opportunity to reset the tanks.
Good luck Andy
NetMax
Andy Gratton
NetMax
can't recall the rate of change though. Maybe 3dgH per day?
To save money, I used to cut my water sample in half, (2.5ml) so I
used half the re-agent and measured in steps of 2dgH.
NetMax
On Jan 9, 1:41 am, Andy Gratton <anglerfis...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I am not 100 % certain of what the GH & KH of the water up North is but
> I know it actually registers on a 6 in 1 dip strip in the lightest bands
> where as my Water here goes right off the scale for both ,
>
> As you know like most keepers I dont like playing around with chemicals
> to alter the water to the fish so I will be rehoming the fish I
> currently have , Pangasius, Ancistrus, and a few Mbuna with a friend
> near me, the first thing I thought of was the Osmotic Shock, so
> basically I will be starting from Scratch as the distance /time factor
> for the filters will not be great .
>
> Regards
>
> Andy
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
Altum
bacteria at 6.0. I would be very concerned about pH crash under those
conditions too. Have you considered putting a little crushed coral in
the filter to gently harden the water, raise the pH, and encourage
more bacteria? I suspect the fungus is a sign of bacteria-poor tank.
--Altum
~pH7, Aquarium Ninja
What to do...?
Well, I've been there. When I was dealing with very soft water, I used a nice product called RO-Right to bring my pH back up to 7 (that's how I picked my user name, pH7). RO-right is not a mysterious chemical concoction, it's just minerals. It's ingredients are found in water from real nature maaaaan. You can read exactly what's in it right on the label.
There are a few other ways I know of to supplement calcium, so I'll tell you what I know, take it or leave it...
One way I have used in the past was to place mineral blocks in my aquarium. They dissolve slowly in the water. The drawback is that you don't know what's in them; it's one of those things that just works, but you don't scientifically know how/why. That doesn't always sit well with me. I don't like that as much as RO-right, which provides you with full disclosure about what's in it. Mineral blocks also make your general hardness (GH) get pretty high, so you have to monitor things and know when to say when, as it were. Mineral blocks *usualy* have little effect on pH. Overall, this isn't my favorite way to increase calcium, KH, GH, and pH (read on...)
As mentioned already, crushed coral also provides calcium. Crushed coral slowly raises both KH (carbonate hardness) and GH (general hardness). Crushed coral does NOT rapidly or greatly increase pH. My qualms with crushed coral are 1) you don't know how much (if any) trace minerals you are getting from it as it leaches into your water, and 2) it isn't an instant thing that takes hold immediately when you change your water. Without an up-front buffer like RO-right, you can cause small or even potentially large swings in water hardness and inflict osmotic shock on your fish should you do a water change that's too big (and you never really know what the tipping point is when using a solution that doesnt provide immediate full disclosure); if you use crushed coral to the point that you depend on it for pH and GH consistency, you are subject to the rate at which it leeches out/disolves and you won't be able to change much water at a time. To me, this is another method that doesn't give me enough disclosure about essential trace minerals; which I already said is somthing I don't like.
Another way to cheaply and quickly handle lack of KH and instantly increase pH is to dose Calcium Carbonate (simple baking soda) into your source water. Smart folks usually frown on that because it doesn't provide you with the other trace minerals you really need, such as the beneficial minerals you get in the RO-right product. Baking soda can also be dangerous; it can cause HUGE pH swings if you accidently use to much; never put it directly into your tank! I do not recommend its use, even though it does provide you with an instantly increased pH for your source water and full disclosure (full disclosure: there's nothing in it besides calcium carbonate). I only mention it here for thoroughness.
Last but not least, I like and now recommend RO-right because it worked MUCH better than the seachem soft water "buffers" I tried, which as you may recall became the source of so much frustration for me last year, as documented on this mailing list. RO-right is also easy to get both in pet stores and online, it's cheap, and it lasts a long time, doesn't cause pH catastrophies if you mix it carefully into a bucket/barrel of your source water before you put it into the aquarium). One time only you'll need to, by trial and error, figure out how much to add in order to bring your pH to the point where you want it. Put a small amount in a bucket, mix well, then wait several hours and test pH, GH, and KH. Add more in small increments, repeating this process, until you get the parameters you want.
Just my 2 cents. YMMV
~pH7, Aquarium Ninja
NetMax
6.5pH (NH to NO2?) and the other at around 6.0pH (NO2 to NO3?), while
at the same time, toxic NH3 changes to non-toxic NH4 (isn't nature
wonderful?). The cause of many fish deaths is when the pH is suddenly
increased through these thresholds, and the NH4 reverts back to toxic
NH3 before the dormant bacteria have a chance to 'wake up'.
Consequently, stabilizing the pH at 6.8 for Discus seems to be a sweet
spot, with a low gH (ie: 3-6 dgH) and a stable kH (6dkH is great, but
if you can keep it above 3 or 4 and watch it, that works too).
Crushed coral leeches at the inverse rate of the acidity of the water
(self-modulating if you have the right amount), but you need to
prepare your water change volume in advance. I suspect Discus
specialists prefer to find an organic buffer instead of a mineral
buffer for the pH, and only use a calcium source to replenish what the
plants strip out of the water - but I'm no specialist.
NetMax
On Jan 10, 6:12 pm, "~pH7, Aquarium Ninja" <p...@aquariumninja.com>
wrote:
~pH7, Aquarium Ninja
To be sure, the old school discus keepers preferred peat, and some still do, but it's going out of style like MC Hammer pants. Now, more than ever however, discus breeders of the highest rankings in the world are coming out in favor of more calcium, openly recognizing that it stimulates spawning rates and helps stave off disease. They tell you that hard water and high GH aren't bad, if they are consistently so. They do advise to lower GH and temperature slightly in spawning tanks, but still stress the need for a good KH buffer. pH is less and less a factor when keeping the newer, fancier show grade "domestics" hybrid breeds. Not many people keep "wilds" and heckel discus anymore; except for some die hard afficionados, they only use them to cross breed.
Lurk around simplydiscus.com, home of Discus Hans and the NADA, and listen in for a week or so and you'll see what I mean. You don't have to take my word for it. Check out the sticky posts in the newbies section too. You'll see an overall theme communicated that corraborates what I'm talking about with the calcium. It would take a few days of reading to pick up on the myriad new trends in discus keeping. So much of what we used to collectively think about the animals is proving false. It's one of the reasons why I love amazonian fish so much.
And yes, the way that ammonia readily becomes ammonium in low pH is an amazing natural phenomenon ;)
~pH7, Aquarium Ninja
Altum
wrote:
>
> To be sure, the old school discus keepers preferred peat, and some still do, but it's going out of style like MC Hammer pants. Now, more than ever however, discus breeders of the highest rankings in the world are coming out in favor of more calcium, openly recognizing that it stimulates spawning rates and helps stave off disease. They tell you that hard water and high GH aren't bad, if they are consistently so. They do advise to lower GH and temperature slightly in spawning tanks, but still stress the need for a good KH buffer. pH is less and less a factor when keeping the newer, fancier show grade "domestics" hybrid breeds. Not many people keep "wilds" and heckel discus anymore; except for some die hard afficionados, they only use them to cross breed.
>
> Lurk around simplydiscus.com, home of Discus Hans and the NADA, and listen in for a week or so and you'll see what I mean. You don't have to take my word for it. Check out the sticky posts in the newbies section too. You'll see an overall theme communicated that corraborates what I'm talking about with the calcium. It would take a few days of reading to pick up on the myriad new trends in discus keeping. So much of what we used to collectively think about the animals is proving false. It's one of the reasons why I love amazonian fish so much.
>
> And yes, the way that ammonia readily becomes ammonium in low pH is an amazing natural phenomenon ;)
>
> ~pH7, Aquarium Ninja
discus have always been more tolerant of hard water and we had a
breeder give a talk at our local fish club who told us to focus on
stability rather than low pH for adult discus. Old school discus
keepers had wild fish and wild discus definitely do best in warm
blackwater. We used to get heckels into the store and they looked
awful until we softened the water and added some peat to the filter.
Then they perked up and colored up nicely. Domestic discus usually
did fine on the system water. All the humic and tannic acids buffer
the pH down and seem pretty essential for the fish to maintain it's
slimecoat.
--Altum