What kind of strange water do I have?

R

ronin

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Mar 29, 2011
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I currently have a planted Nanocube that has been giving me fits for the last few years. Fish seem to have a tough time surviving after being introduced to the tank. And even if they do survive the initial release, a couple of water changes later will do them in. So I'm trying to figure out exactly what's going on and the first thing I'd like to ask about is water hardness.

To start with, my ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels are all zero. PH out of the tap is 7.2. The only peculiarity I've run into as far as water chemistry is concerned is in hardness. I'm using one of those KH/GH droplet test kits and while it takes only one drop for the KH test to turn to the yellow endpoint color, I can not, for the life of me, get the GH test to change color. At all. I think at one point I added almost 100 drops into a 5ml sample of water and it STILL hadn't changed to the green end color. And I tried this with TWO different GH droplet test kits. I originally thought maybe the first kit was too old (a couple of years) so bought another one but the new one didn't bring about a result either.

So, what in the world is going on with the general hardness of my water? Is it just way too hard for the test kits to register? And if so, what effect would this have on fish? Would I need to use a much longer acclimation procedure? Previously I've just been transferring water from the tank to the bag over a period of an hour or two.
 
I have two questions:

How big is the tank?
Are you sure it is cycled, given that nitrates are 0?
What fish have you been buying?

Okay, that's three questions...
 
I'm with bitbot in thinking your tank may have never properly cycled, seeing as how you have 0 nitrates. A tank that hasn't gone through the nitrogen cycle completely would provide an unstable living condition for fish, being a probable cause for less-than-hardy species to die off.
 
Do you treat the water for Chlorine?? Chloramine??
 
Although dont know anything about your water & fish thus cant assist exactly why youre having difficulties but Simply Dilute the samples (save you money on titration reagents) to be tested with distilled water which is one way to ensure if in fact your water is very hard (high Ca/Mg) or test kit is rendering correct results.

I would run 2 samples: one being tank water and one sample on tap water. If tap show much lower GH than tank water, perhaps something in the tank is causing such increases.

Hope this helped a bit in analyzing your GH!
 
saram521 said:
I'm with bitbot in thinking your tank may have never properly cycled, seeing as how you have 0 nitrates. A tank that hasn't gone through the nitrogen cycle completely would provide an unstable living condition for fish, being a probable cause for less-than-hardy species to die off.
Click to expand...

+1
 
well if it is planted enough then the nitrates would be absorbed...at least thats what I thought.
 
Tank which has been running for few yrs or few yrs old, one must try darn hard to prevent BB from establishing.:laugh: :silly:
Perhaps OP may have done something to yield possible mini-cycle from time to time:)

NO3 = 0 does not necessarily mean tank is not cycled. :nono:
Stay flexible as there can be more than one reason.:)
 
Ok, a couple of answers to the questions that have been asked. =)

This is a 24 gallon Nanocube that's been up and running since 2006. I'm pretty certain it's cycled at this point. Nitrate might not be 0 all the time but usually pretty low. I'll check it again soon when I get the chance.

I've been unable to get a general hardness reading from water straight from the tap or from the tank itself. Someone on another board mentioned that the GH test from the API kits have a very short shelf life and to try to get a test kit produced w/in the last 3 months. Not sure if that's entirely possible but I'll keep an eye out.

As for fish, it's sole inhabitants right now are around 5 or 6 neons and a trio of honey gouramis. I had 3 panda cories in it until recently when after a water change, one passed away and I removed the other two to a fish bowl when I noticed that they had a whitish layer developing over their bodies (and eyes). I then proceeded to douse them w/Melafix, Pimafix and some antibiotic (exact one I'll check when I get home) and surprisingly, they seem to be recovering. At the same time, I noticed the edge of the fins of the neons and gouramis start to look like they were getting frayed along w/an occasional small white spot or two deeper into the fin. Not a bumpy white spot, just a spot on the fin that looks white. So I started dosing the tank itself w/Melafix, Pimafix, etc. So far it appears that things are turning around as the neons and gouramis look like they're recovering as well.

But, I'm tired of having to go through this pretty much every time I do a water change. I tend to do water changes less frequently than I should (probably once a month or two) but not doing the changes doesn't seem to affect the fish much. It's when I do a water change that things go out of whack. Because I do it so infrequently I usually swap out almost 50% at a time. The only thing I add to the water is Stress Coat.
 
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