Question for liv2padl

[wesleydnunder]

Dan, a while back I seem to remember you mentioning some areas of the Amazon being hard water. Are there any cichlids from these areas? If so could you name a couple, please?

[Mgamer20o0]

they are.... wait... not liv2padl sorry.

[liv2padl]

wesley, i can think of no areas of the Amazon which are anything but soft and acidic. what i may have been referring to was the fact that the vast majority of fish in the hobby today are tank or pond bred either in the USA or Asia, and have adapted over the course of many generations, to generally hard and alkaline water.

I've been keeping and breeding cichlids for over 40 years now, including some species of Dwarf Cichlids which are from the Black waters of the Amazon and are extremely hard to breed. I can tell you that something has happened genetically, because these cichlids do in fact breed in hard water. After 9 years of being maintained in hard, alkaline water, they are now much easier to breed then when I first started. Taeniacara candidi is one example.

While i've never kept Discus or angels, I know of a fellow ACA member in Sacramento that raises Discus -- some 80 breeding pairs, that he keeps in water which is generally 8.0+. He did a number of experiments many years ago, moving pairs from one pH to another (i.e., 6.8 to 7.6 then to 8.0) to determine viability, tolerances, etc. His fish continued to spawn; albeit with a differing hatch rate, but they continued to perform. He also did the same with temperature tolerances and breeding, though I don't recall the numbers there, except to say that he kept his fish lower than what the books call for, and they bred with regularity.

I read of an Angel and Discus breeder in Los Angeles who did not treat his water (ph a minimum of 7.8, with an average of 8.1 pH), but kept the building at 80°+, ran a drip irrigation method which changed 250% of the water daily on his fish, and he fed extremely well; he had between 15,000-20,000 angel fry a week going and a couple of hundred discus fry.

Since few Discus are 'wild caught' anymore, and what is out in the hobby has
acclimated itself to what 'is', you can see significant variation in ranges for fish. Same goes for the 'angel'. The 'scalare' are fairly adaptable, only not succeeding at real extremes, while the newer 'altum' angels require attention to detail in their environment.

It appears that the major driving force in being able to breed most cichlids, including those such as discus or angels, which are "known to be temperamental", in any water is the water quality (lots of water changes/reduced nitrate/nitrite issues) and lots of food. Translate all that to good care.

So, keeping 'soft water' cichlids in other than 'Amazonian water' can happen, and does, with more success than some would anticipate. To be sure, there are probably as many fish that cannot be spawned in other than their 'native' water chemistry as those that can ... but that number is decreasing every year.

[Cylon]

I was spawned in hard water.
You may have noticed this on TV. On the Cylon Base ship.

[wesleydnunder]

Thanks for the reply, Dan. My discus spawn in ph 7.6, gh 15 - 17. They've spawned twice now in my 125 planted. Same for my angels, though in a different tank. No fry fom the discus yet but i need to assemble breeder set-up for them because the SAE's in the 125 ate the eggs. I don't know why i thought you had said that. lol maybe i'm gettin' old. you might have been referring to SA in general and I read something into it. In Bleher's Discus he mentions some clearwater areas of the amazon with ph of 7.8 and dGH of as much as 12 and mentioned some acaras and geophagous from those areas.
One of the discus pair that spawned in this tank is a wild blue. His slime coat thickens when he spawns and doesn't seem bothered by the higher ph or hardness. I appreciate the help, Dan.

[pugwash]

Just thinking out loud, but does the pH affect the sex ratio of the broods? Seem to remember reading somewhere about it, but can't remember the context.

Could have been some other animal species though...

[liv2padl]

in several "soft water" species, pH has been found to impact the sex ratios of the fry. to me personally, it doesn't make any difference as long as there are 'some' of each sex.

[Cathy G]

Not only pH but temps and hardness effect m/f ratios. While with some of the apistogamma and dwarfs the males and females are both attractive, I am bumping up the temps in my borelli tank to get some male fish this time, my last spawns ended up yielding all females and they are the most boring mousy colored things....!

I am also spawning some Bedotia geayi (Madagascar Rainbows) again. The last time I did it with cooler harder water and I got all females. Now I've trying again with softer warm water to see it that makes a difference.

I wish there was some manual out there for all fish which gave us all the answers on 'how to ....' but perhaps that might take the fun out of it!

We've always been told - at least with rams - that harder water prevent the proper fertilization of eggs. The membranes around the eggs are too tough. So, I can see how the fish will still spawn, etc. even in harder water, but to have them actually reproduce implies thousands of changes have happened in the fish in order to make this happen. Adaptation... and lots of it.

Interesting topic here.
Cathy

[Cylon]

After Cathys post, I'm wondering if I lower my temp will have more female Blue Jeaned Jack Dempseys.

If higher temps incourage spawning should I lower the temp after the eggs are layed?