Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

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Loachloach
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by Loachloach » Fri Mar 08, 2019 6:28 pm

I believe it was you your self that said fish need minerals and things that only KH can fulfill.
Not me Fran, not in that sense. KH has little to do with minerals needed for fish. GH has in a sense though, another topic. KH is to do with stability of water in aquariums. In nature it is not important due to the massive volume of water and natural buffers such as humic and fulvic acids(yes these acids buffer soft water up) Hence a soft water tap is nothing like soft water in nature.

I know very well your water has no buffering capacity. But you only need adding soda bicarbonate if the KH is about to drop to zero between water changes.
I read articles that say if the TDS changes drastically it could shock your fish. So if I change 75% of this tank water I could potentially kill them because the TDS is going to change drastically.
a TDS rise, a GH rise, a KH drop and a subsequent pH drop is what causes the very common term "pH shock" event or "Old tank syndrome. TDS drop is a positive move and for the most part is very safe as you're returning the water back to a "Quality level" at which point the fish will feel way better. If its going to make you feel better, I have dropped the TDS on a tank with a quarantined baby clown loach by 100ppm at a time with no negative effect whatsoever. That was after a solid salt dosing for ich.

Think of it that way...Let's say you have water riddled with nitrates to the hundreds of ppm. You are afraid to do big water change to reduce the nitrates? So you keep going the way you are for what reason? One either takes the plunge or takes the risks.
There is no debris on it, very little. Not like having gravel that debris can settle into. I do not, nor will I ever, understand why I am having nitrates and TDS issues.
As I explained in my previous post, a TDS meter, although an acronym for Total Dissolved Solids, does not measure solids. It measures ions, i.e. conductivity. The detritus in substrate is a contributor only once said detritus dissolves in water due to chemical and biological reactions. The ions in the water column are the final result of all chemical and biological processes in the tank. Hence why is using a TDS meter as a pollution indicator so important, as it gives away the entire picture.

FranM
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Location: Rhode Island USA

Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by FranM » Tue Mar 12, 2019 3:24 pm

There are many differing opinions on TDS.

Anyway, I cleaned the filter and TDS dropped about 30 points without a water change. I found that interesting and somewhat telling.

Loachloach
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by Loachloach » Tue Mar 12, 2019 5:42 pm

FranM wrote:
Tue Mar 12, 2019 3:24 pm
There are many differing opinions on TDS.

Anyway, I cleaned the filter and TDS dropped about 30 points without a water change. I found that interesting and somewhat telling.
There should not be different opinions on TDS, because the meter you've got or any TDS meter on the market measures conductivity. They do not measure solids. The acronym for solids is TSS, total suspended solids. Whoever has a different opinion on it is confused from my point of view.

After you cleaned the filter, water riddled with ions of some sort was removed, which was concentrated in the filter, mostly nitrates, plus any subsequent nitrate production was prevented. Filter media and filters should be kept clean. Hence I suggested pre-filters in the past as well to keep the main media clean. It is one way of keeping nitrates and nitrogen low as not just nitrates are produced in the filters but also toxic ammonia plus nitrites due to both nitrification and denitrification, plus another range of potentially toxic gasses. Imagine a pile of decomposing detritus.....can't be good...Plus, to mention, keep in mind that the TDS meter, if not calibrated every so often, will not be so accurate so I'd test a few times one after another. I would not draw all the attention to a mere 30ppm when you've got another 160ppm to drop down, for example.

Fran, I am only giving my best advice. I may sound pushy. I could be wrong like any other human being. If you want a different advice, you can ask someone else or ask elsewhere. What I say has worked for me for years. That's all I can say and I am confident in what I am saying.

You have taken up a different route with the Seachem matrix, stability, etc...and I've never ever used these, for a reason, though I think Seachem stability won't harm as its just heterotrophic bacteria that will help in reducing the sludge in the tank, although there are way cheaper options to do that. I am against the idea to swing the chemistry of the tank by adding additives. For example, on a bigger scale, if you feed more, and you have snails, snails will multiply more. If you add a snail killer, snails will die but the bioload of the extra feeding isn't removed. So one should see the tank as a big machine where adding something has an effect, and in some cases, it may not be small and it may not be positive, even with one's best intentions.

FranM
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by FranM » Tue Mar 12, 2019 6:13 pm

Don’t I need the KH to be existent? If I don’t add baking soda the KH will be nil. That can’t be safe.

Bas Pels
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by Bas Pels » Wed Mar 13, 2019 3:44 am

FranM wrote:
Tue Mar 12, 2019 6:13 pm
Don’t I need the KH to be existent? If I don’t add baking soda the KH will be nil. That can’t be safe.
KH comes from the German for Carbonate hardness. Carbonates are normally in your water, unless the pH is too low.

CO2 is in the air everywhere, and dissolves into the water. It can react with a watermolecule int H2CO3, but this molecule is unstable. It will fall apart into CO2 and H2O, but it can also split into HCO3- (bicarbonate) and H+. The HCO3- can split further into CO3--, carbonate.

What I hope to show you here, is that after dissolving CO2, a part of it goes into HCO3- and CO3--, taking away lots of CO2, and increasing the amount which can dissolve.

if the pH is over 8 - a Malawi or Tanganjica tank - the carbonate hardness can be very high, over 15 without any interference. However, around pH = 5,5 or 6, the amount of H+ is so large, HCO3- will recombine in significant numbers into H2CO3, and fall apart into CO2 and H2O. That is, the amount of CO2 in the water will increase dramatrically, and lots of CO2 disappear into the air.

The significant result is, the carbonate buffer does not function anymore. As this is quite often the only buffer in the water, there is no protection agains a pH drop. But in case your pH is over 6 and the water is either old enough or well aerated, there is nothing to worry about.

FranM
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by FranM » Wed Mar 13, 2019 4:03 am

Bas, let me say this.

Tank PH is 8.0. I add baking soda with each water change to keep a consistent KH between 3-5.

My tap water is 8.2. KH out of tap is 0.

Is it possible PH will not drastically fall over a few days without adding baking soda to the newly added water?

Last water change was 3/8, 40%. I doubt I could go five days with no baking soda added without PH plummeting. This is what I assume.

FranM
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by FranM » Wed Mar 13, 2019 4:14 am

Loachloach wrote:
Fri Mar 08, 2019 6:28 pm

I know very well your water has no buffering capacity. But you only need adding soda bicarbonate if the KH is about to drop to zero between water changes.

You sent a lot of info, Loach. I have to go back to look at it. I can try not adding baking soda each water change but I bet I would still need to add weekly. My only argument with maintaining the KH at every water change was so it was one less parameter that would not change frequently, and in my mind isn’t the more consistency the better?

Clearly I don’t know how to quote properly. :-/

Bas Pels
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by Bas Pels » Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:58 am

FranM wrote:
Wed Mar 13, 2019 4:03 am
Bas, let me say this.

Tank PH is 8.0. I add baking soda with each water change to keep a consistent KH between 3-5.

My tap water is 8.2. KH out of tap is 0.

Is it possible PH will not drastically fall over a few days without adding baking soda to the newly added water?

Last water change was 3/8, 40%. I doubt I could go five days with no baking soda added without PH plummeting. This is what I assume.
With a KH of 0, your pH can drop dramatically. But you could try a large bucket of this water, aerate it for an hour and then measure the KH. It must be significant. Futher the pH will have been dropped significantly too.

That might be the problem, addingCO2 by aerating drops the pH, adding baking soda will increase it.

Further, a tank with lots of plants and scarsely any fish will have a low KH, adding fish will increase this

Still, I wonder how the water can be dilivered with a KH of 0. We get water from below the earth, which is fine, but it is poor in oxygen and it contains iron. This iron is removed by exposure to air, it oxidises to Fe2O3, which does not dissolve, and as a by product the water is saturated with both O2 and CO2. Your process must keep the water free of air, in order to keep the KH at 0

FranM
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by FranM » Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:01 pm

I don’t know what it is that keeps 0 KH for tap. I don’t have plants either so no CO2.

Going to do what Loach has suggested and do a BIG w/c hoping the KH difference doesn’t shock fish. I will monitor PH often for the next few days.

Loachloach
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by Loachloach » Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:38 pm

Fran, additionally, if you let's say you raise your KH to 4 or any sort of value, this may last longer than a week, so maybe test to see how far you can go. My KH from tap is 5 and I never need to worry about a pH drop between water changes. I've gone on holidays for 3 weeks and no water changes and I still don't get a pH drop. The only times I actually did is in overfed fry tanks and when I was fishless cycling, and also in a tank I did not do water changes for ages.

So you may need a lot less baking soda to keep things stable. However, it is very much tank dependent what changes by how much and how long it takes, so you'd need to do a test run and be on top of things for a while again....You surely must be tired of all that I am sure :wink:

Loachloach
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by Loachloach » Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:55 pm

FranM wrote:
Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:01 pm
I don’t know what it is that keeps 0 KH for tap. I don’t have plants either so no CO2.

Going to do what Loach has suggested and do a BIG w/c hoping the KH difference doesn’t shock fish. I will monitor PH often for the next few days.
Like I mentioned before, from personal experience I've dropped 100ppm TDS at a time on a quarantined clown loach and a bunch of platies, after dosing salt to 800ppm for white spot treatment. They didn't wink. Dropping is fine, increasing is what fish can't tolerate, especially soft water fish as their natural waters have extremely low TDS. The problem in aquariums is that we can't keep a small volume of water with very low TDS because the buffering in natural bodies of water isn't in fish tanks water. In nature very soft water is actually buffered by acids surprisingly, such as humic and fulvic acids. TDS increase happens in the dry season but then lots of fish die then as well which is not what we want in fish tanks.

I left a tank once to a natural increase of TDS to about 500-600ppm. Needless to say I got the random sickly fish and they were hard water fish mostly, and experiment was over. That was after 6 months of no water changing....What happened actually was increase in TDS, increase in GH, decrease in KH and decrease in pH. So if you test for only the latter two values, you'd think your tank's water has become softer.....TDS and GH go hand in hand and the opposite direction of KH and pH in neglected tanks....A healthy tank would see a stable TDS or a drop of TDS(in the case of planted tanks), drop of GH and stable KH and stable pH.

FranM
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by FranM » Thu Mar 14, 2019 4:56 pm

Thanks, Loach.

I’m refilling as we speak. I’m a bit frustrated because I wanted to siphon sand but the smaller siphon is at my old house and no matter how I tried to get a suction with just hose I couldn’t. I really hate the deep tank but I would never utter this to my fiancé! I’ll post readings soon.

KH was at 5 prior.

Loachloach
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by Loachloach » Thu Mar 14, 2019 5:14 pm

I am sure the fish don't mind the deeper fish tank :D

Loachloach
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by Loachloach » Thu Mar 14, 2019 5:17 pm

My pond is 80 cm tall by the way, which is nearly 3feet less 4 inches. I clean what I can reach and when I can reach it. Sand doesn't get that dirty and I only have just enough to cover the bottom sufficiently. I find that, unless one has gravel or the substrate is deep, water changes are way more important than siphoning the sand.

FranM
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Re: Videos. Cyst bursting. Silver Dollar (lives with loaches)

Post by FranM » Thu Mar 14, 2019 5:28 pm

I needed to siphon. There was debris caught under the rock centerpiece. I just wanted to skim top and take a small layer off. Anyway....

PH before. 8.0. NOW 8.2

KH before 5. NOW 3

TDS before. 263. NOW. 162

We’ll see how long this all lasts. Also, I have an apartment sized water heater so more than 50% wc and I start to lose hot water.

The tiniest teensy who is eating, active and not skinny, is also not getting any bigger.

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