I add prime to my buckets when I add the water. Probably too much, but sometimes it smells like I have pool water in my pipes.
dear water company...
- Thread starter inkyjenn
- Start date
This may sound ridiculous, but do you add prime for just the amound of water being changed or dose for the full 55gallons each time? I followed a thread a few months ago and found that MANY (including myself) who used a python were only adding enough declorinator to cover the amount of water being changed out. That is fine if you are treating buckets before adding. However, if you are using the python and adding water directly from the tap to the tank, you need to add enough prime to treat the full 55 gallons every time. Don't mean to insult you if you already know this. Just thought I'd throw it out there. Good luck!
I agree with the others - a slight amount of ammonia in your tap water is not going to kill your fish that fast after a water change.
in cases where fish die very quickly after a water change, it is most often a pH problem.
ie a sudden change in pH from the addition of the new water with a different pH can kill fish very quickly.
what is the pH of your tank and what is the pH of your tap water?
it may be hard to tell what the pH of your tank was prior to the water change though..
in cases where fish die very quickly after a water change, it is most often a pH problem.
ie a sudden change in pH from the addition of the new water with a different pH can kill fish very quickly.
what is the pH of your tank and what is the pH of your tap water?
it may be hard to tell what the pH of your tank was prior to the water change though..
Water problems? California? Contact Erin Brockovich!!
I am sorry to hear about your fish loss and your health problems. I dont even know if I'd trust a brita filter with that water.
Would it be difficult to get the tap water analyzed? Water treatment companies will do this for free.
Nips
I am sorry to hear about your fish loss and your health problems. I dont even know if I'd trust a brita filter with that water.
Would it be difficult to get the tap water analyzed? Water treatment companies will do this for free.
Nips
Not so. Fish are largely insensitive to pH. If the TDS (best approximated by GH and/or KH) has changed significantly that can stress fish, but this old "pH shock" thing is a myth; many fish live in waters which change by over a point in a few hours; I regularly move fish from a pH 7.4 QT tank to a pH 6.0 display tank (same water but peat filtered and CO2 injected) with no ill effects.
If you add RO water you may find a LFS that sells it cheap or try those water dispensers outside supermarkets. Glacier water sells RO for 30 cents per gallon here in Santa Barbara and it tests out to almost zero hardness. I found a dispenser near my house that sells RO for 15 cents per gallon.
It would really pay you to stop telling everyone that the ph shock thing is a myth. As was explained to you in another thread, this is the way hobbiest that arent chemist understand to acclimate there fish, its a rule of thumb to go by. Perhaps explaining as you have the context behind the ph would be a lot better than stating it is a myth, because its not. The correct term is osmotic shock. Now, if you can give an explanation, or the name of a test kit that tests for the TDS in a tank, this would help tremendously for hobbiest that are not chemists, sadly a TDS test kit to my knowledge does not exist, hence the reason PH is what is used as a rule of thumb, as well as nitrates, to measure this.
Why would you chance a newb reading this and taking there fish they just purchased and dumping them in there tank at home and the fish dying over a few days because of ph shock, osmotic shock? I find that to be an irresponsible posting style on your behalf.
pH shock is a myth. Osmotic shock is real. One is not the "correct name" for the other; the first is the belief that pH changes in and of themselves can kill fish; it is untrue; the latter is the fact that changes in osmotic potential can kill fish, and is true. They are different things and personally I think it's a good thing to make people clear about the real issues which threaten their fish, rather than propogate a myth. By propogating the pH myth, we risk newbies dumping fish from liquid rock at an LFS into super soft water at home, and believing they're safe because they put some "pH adjuster" in the water. Why would we chance that by not getting to the real issue? That is what I'd consider irresponsible, not, as I do, explaining the real issues.
A TDS test does not, as you say, exist. However, GH and KH kits do, and IME these are the major contributors to TDS, varying as they do over hundreds of ppm between different water sources, far more than even nitrate in a neglected tank. They are definitely a better indicator than pH. One of my major gripes with the industry is that pH test kits are put in test master kits whilst hardness tests are often left out.
I raised the issue here because the idea that a change in the pH is responsible for the problem, which could lead to the poster being led up the garden path mucking with pH without knowing about or addressing the real underlying issues.
A TDS test does not, as you say, exist. However, GH and KH kits do, and IME these are the major contributors to TDS, varying as they do over hundreds of ppm between different water sources, far more than even nitrate in a neglected tank. They are definitely a better indicator than pH. One of my major gripes with the industry is that pH test kits are put in test master kits whilst hardness tests are often left out.
I raised the issue here because the idea that a change in the pH is responsible for the problem, which could lead to the poster being led up the garden path mucking with pH without knowing about or addressing the real underlying issues.
KarlTh..
So, what your saying is that if i have a fish in a pH of 7.9 and i then add this fish to a tank where the pH is 6.0 ( or even lower ), it will not have an effect on the fish????? as you say this is a myth..
So, what your saying is that if i have a fish in a pH of 7.9 and i then add this fish to a tank where the pH is 6.0 ( or even lower ), it will not have an effect on the fish????? as you say this is a myth..
Correct, if the TDS is the same. The research on the subject shows that within a certain range (around 4.5 to 9, above and below which other physiological factors come into play) the fish adjusts its H+ balance within a couple of hours and suffers no ill effects. More than a change of around 2 points might start to push a fish into a situation where blood alkalosis or acidosis might stress the fish. Such waters having the same TDS is however fairly unlikely, because (and this is where Blueiz is coming from) the 7.9 water is almost certainly considerably higher in TDS than the 6.0 water, but it's the difference in TDS, not the pH, which is the issue. As I said, I move fish from my QT at 7.4 to the display tank which is somewhere below 6.0 (that's as low as the kit goes). The full version of the pH shock myths implies that fish can only cope with a change of about 0.1 (or other arbitrary figure) per day or may die; it's nonsense.
Big pH differences should be a warning flag, because of what may underlie them, but they should result in testing the GH and KH to find the underlying issues.
