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 » Sun Mar 24, 2019 4:01 pm

Loach. I haven’t added any baking soda since the last 30% w/c and the KH is 3. So I’m leaving well enough alone right now.


Yes, that sounds fine. You'll get a feel how much your tank "consumes" in a period of time and then adjust your dosing frequency based on that. As long as there's some reading you are fine. As I said before, don't let that TDS climb up again.

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

Post by FranM » Sun Mar 24, 2019 7:09 pm

Thanks. I will check TDS again....

160. It creeps up day by day.

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

Post by Loachloach » Tue Mar 26, 2019 7:03 pm

It's normal for it to creep up. As long as you control it down to a range you're happy with, then its fine. Controlling the TDS is same as controlling the nitrates. If you keep the TDS in your desired range, the nitrates will also stay low. They go hand in hand, only TDS includes other build up as well that if not monitored, can go out of hand.

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

Post by FranM » Tue Mar 26, 2019 7:07 pm

OK. Thanks, Loach.

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

Post by NancyD » Tue Mar 26, 2019 10:35 pm

You may have seasonal water differences too, Fran. I did in MA & now in CA.
Image

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

Post by FranM » Wed Mar 27, 2019 12:47 am

Over the last month, TDS out of tap has remained pretty consistent at 88-ish, Nancy. The summer could be higher I would imagine.

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

Post by Loachloach » Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:06 pm

Mine is pretty consistent. It's varied 40ppm max over the years.

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

Post by Basil » Fri Mar 29, 2019 12:50 am

Oh wow. I’m jealous lol! I’m using RO/DI water but out of curiosity I decided to check the tds of my well water out of the tap: 303. It could be worse but only 2 months into the RO system and I’m ready to change out the DI resin.
I could use a softener but we’ve just never looked into one. But then the water would be high in salts as the typical softener uses salt. So I’m guessing the tds would still be high.

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

Post by Bas Pels » Fri Mar 29, 2019 3:39 am

That's right. What a softener does, is exchange calcium and mangesium for sodium.

Waterhardness has it's origiens in the laundry - calcium and mangesium hinder the effects of soap. Therefore hard water needed the use of more soap, and later the softening industry began.

For us, hardness was basically a way to get an impression of the osmotic pressure of the water. Osmotic pressure is made by everything which is dissolved, and as most of the things which are dissolved are conductive, it is better to measure the conductivity - or TDS, which measures the same.

Black water is very low in conduticity, but has dissolved a lot of not conductive material - that is the osmotic pressure is higher than one would expect.

But back to the exchange of calcium by sodium - for each calcium ion one gets 2 sodium ions. These carry half the charge, so condutivity will not change, but the osmotic pressure will.

That is, after using a softener, the water is worse then is was - for soft water fish.

In fact, it is also worse for hard water fish, as tese need the calcium in the water to develop bones.

So I can summerize "Don't use a softener for keeping fishes"

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

Post by Loachloach » Fri Mar 29, 2019 5:05 pm

Mine is pretty consistent. It's varied 40ppm max over the years.
Apologies for the confusion Basil. My water is very hard, TDS is around 300-ish right now out of tap. The lowest it's been is 275ppm....

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

Post by Loachloach » Fri Mar 29, 2019 5:16 pm

That is, after using a softener, the water is worse then is was - for soft water fish.
So I can summerize "Don't use a softener for keeping fishes"
Well said.
Black water is very low in conduticity, but has dissolved a lot of not conductive material - that is the osmotic pressure is higher than one would expect.
This is interesting. Do you mind expanding on the topic? What type of non-conductive material do you have in mind?

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

Post by Bas Pels » Sat Mar 30, 2019 4:33 am

Plant material. The very thing which make the water black. One among them is humic acid - this is partly decayed plants, large molecules with acid funtion an quite a few places.

Now you might think acid = conductive, but atthe pH of black water, 5 or less, the humnic acid is - as we chemist call it - not dissociated. That is, the H of the acid is still on the acid.


One could imitate this with peat, but than you get water which is too much like black ater, visibility is too little to see the bacl of the tank. Your fish might love it, but you will not see them - and therefore you don't even know whether the like it.


Personally I would draw another conclusion: Black water may have a conditivity of 2 or less, but these fishes will be very happy if we provide them a condictivity of 20. After all, we don't provide osmotic pressure form not conductive dissolved molecules

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

Post by Loachloach » Sun Mar 31, 2019 7:54 am

Thanks Bas. Anecdotal evidence points to the same, slightly higher conductivity in fish tanks compared to nature is beneficial to those same fish.

I am not saying it applies to every black water fish species but I remember reading a blog on keeping kuhli loaches some long time ago. After keeping the loaches in very acidic low conductivity black water tank for years the poster found out they'd develop spinal deformities and recommended they be kept in slightly harder water.

Fish tanks aren't the same as nature in any way. I've personally kept my kuhli loaches in my hard water for quite a few years now, I think I bought them 6 years ago, and no issues at all so far. I lost one during a tank break down and another by taking out a planted basket without seeing there was a kuhli loach in it. I found it dried out afterwards. :( A few weeks back I also found a baby kuhli loach in another plant basket while I was replanting. This is happening in water with TDS from tap around 300ppm but besides being rich in calcium and magnesium, my tap water is rather clean and low in other pollutants even though farming is a big thing in the area.

FranM
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Location: Rhode Island USA

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

Post by FranM » Sun Mar 31, 2019 10:11 am

I have good news and bad news!

Look at the healing of this silver dollar. The hole is nearly closed.

https://youtu.be/TFDhdC-DQ0E

Now the bad. Yesterday morning I woke up missing the teensiest teensy. I found his remains. In my opinion he was a little runt and I was amazed that he kept on going. I don’t know if he was a victim or if it was a natural death. But I’m not surprised I lost him.

Doing a w/c as I write this. KH held steady 3. TDS is 171.

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

Post by Loachloach » Sun Mar 31, 2019 10:42 am

Really sorry to hear that Fran. These things happen unfortunately and a lot baby clowns I see in my local shop are already sickly.

The silver dollar is looking really good now. Amazing stuff.

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