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Hi, I’ve read much of the site and have some questions about setting up a tank.
1. I want to use R/O water and mix it with blackwater extract or whatever needs to be added to make the water right for the fish. What should be added to r/o water? Just blackwater extract or is there a specific product or products that will make r/o water inhabitable?
2. I read that there have been successes with unfiltered tanks. I’ve also read filter bacteria can’t survive in blackwater. So it’s water changes and plants that remove the pollution? Is there a danger of making the pH crash if there is too much plant life? I was thinking of a bog setup, with plants with aerial leaves and roots in the water. Since there is no biological filter except the plants, these tanks don’t need to be cycled do they?
3. A mix of moina and baby artemia, is that nutritious enough? And can baby artemia be fed instead of hatched daily or are they best daily hatched?
Thanks for any help, I want to make sure I have everything set up properly.
Wanted to add, also wondering how good blackworms are as food. Since they are the easiest live food to take care of and acquire for me.
Hello Jacob,
1. I also use R/O water. Our tap water is very hard (>45°GH), so the permeate still has a cunductance of about 70,0 microsiemens/cm. What works best for me is to use something like this:
The R/O water drips over peat (unfertilized, pure) filled in a bottle, right when it exits the R/O unit. After this I get yellowih water with pH around 4.5 and a cunductance around 50 microsiemens/cm. The initial murkiness vanishes in the tank, a few hours after the water change.
I made the experience, that anything that has to do with adding something to R/O water, like peat-extract etc. makes you end up with too high conductances…
so I prefer the dripping method, which extracts the humic acids from the peat and on the other hand even lowers the conductance.Perhaps there are other ways of getting a suitable water, especially if you have softer tap water, but in my case, this method seems best.
2. I’ve never watched a pH-crash in my tanks up to now… I think, the humic acids and other sunbstances of peat, leaves etc. buffer the pH at a certain level.
What I experienced is the exact opposite: in newly setup tanks, it can be the case that pH-levels rise again, after water-change. Perhaps that’s because the biological system in the tank has to find its balance?
Of course you don’t need to filter or cycle your setup if you add plants with submerged roots, but I prefer a little circulation, so I use small sponge-filters. But thats due to my subjective feeling.3. In my opinion, moina and artemia (freshly hatched) makes a good staple. You can add all sorts of mosquito larvae if they are not too big for the paros…
I don’t know blackworm yet, but if they are not too big, it should work… try it.Good luck with your setup.
Martin
Excellent reply by Martin. I cannot tell it better.
But I can affirm everything, especially his observations on the relative pH-stabiliy. Just contrary to the general opinion the low pH is rather stable in my small Parosphromenus-tanks, too. But one should observe three things: very low conductivity, presence of organic materials that add humine substances, and restriction to plants which make use of nutrients that are solved in the water without having a great chemical activity (that is, for instance, floating Ceratopteris. A tank which is planted heavily in the conventional way may contain too many plants that influence the pH. Ceratopteris or Javamoss seems to be ideally suited for our purposes. A few others will not damage the system).I think it´s a bit off topic but I tried to cultivate blackworms, too. It was very slowly and is not efficient to use as a dayly or even weekly food.
How do you manage that?
Thanks for the responses, good to know the pH is not likely to crash.
The R/O water I would use is sold in fish stores for people topping off saltwater tanks, I will learn what the values of it are. I liked the idea of adding blackwater extract just because it seems like you could have a formula that you repeat every time for exactly the same water. I will have to filter the r/o water, and I assume it usually ends up in the same range and there’s an amount of difference that can be tolerated safely. I wonder if cryptocoryne could be used, since they are amphibious. Pitcher plants or other interesting land plants would make a good display and it could be a biotope of where the fish come from, but I don’t know if those bog plants affect the water too much. Combining plants and weak filtration seem like a good idea.
For blackworms, they’re easily bought in stores where I am. I never tried to breed them, but they would always multiply in the gravel. This was a good thing for the dwarf puffers I was keeping since they would catch them throughout the day. But some don’t like worms in their tank. Over time they are supposed to get smaller and weaker in tanks, because of oxygen being less in the water column than if they could use the air (if I rememmber right.) Stores keep them in shallow water in refridgerators, so their metabolism slows down and they don’t need to be fed, I think.
They would die if the tank I kept them in had no aeration. They would eat pieces of brown grocery bag paper, and almost anything else. Keeping them in shallow water or keeping them submerged in water clean and aerated seemed the most important requirement for keeping them alive, I don’t know about breeding them.That didn’t really answer the blackworm question, I think what I meant was that they are easily available in pretty large quantity from stores, so I only worried about keeping them alive. For a live food from a store it is actually a lot of food for the price, compared to other live foods. But they may not be available everywhere.
Putting a filter with peat in a 5 gallon container, this would work just as well as the drip method I think, but I wonder if it reaches a certain pH and then further filtering makes no difference, or if there is a certain time limit of filtering that you should follow.
Also wonder if it is possible to premix water and let it sit or if it will change over time.Thanks for your respose. I think blackworms are a good food but should not be used to often becouse they are a little bit fatter than other food. To keep them alive should be no problem. As you said they use to use air if there is not enouth oxygen in the water and they will breed if you feed them with salat, nettles or other organic material. But very slow becouse they take off their back and that have to grow to the origin size to be taken off again.
That you said about the water is no problem for me. Of couse there will be problems if you put blackwater (with mostly a lot of organic material) in a box and wait for a long time. The water parameter meight change a bit, but why do you want to filter that at that time.
Is it not clean enouth then you keep it?
I mean why do you want to have more than you use? Than there would be no problem.
I was thinking of making more water than I need for emergencies or because it would be convenient, but since so little is needed it’s not really necessary.
The peat filtered water in the aquarium changes and becomes softer over time, and as was written before new water raises the pH a little. But this increase is harmless, is this because fish are less sensitive to pH increases than decreases, and also because if it is within the range of acceptable conditions, they can stand a little fluctuation? If the water is soft enough and acidic enough are paroshpromenus not terribly delicate? Not that I would test their limits but I’m thinking about the fact that soft acidic water with organic material will not be totally stable. And it sounds like they will live and breed fine despite that. What are safe levels of change in their aquariums?
Noticed another thread about magazine articles- I have an issue of Aquarium Fish International from March 2011 that has an article about breeding parosphromenus.Jacob, I generally comply with you. Parosphromenus are quite stable and less delicate if kept in a sound and rather stable environment. To my experience, the pH-issue is overstimated if taken as that value itself. Even Parosphromenus do not “need” very low pH, even their eggs do not. There are many reports of successful breeding with a pH around 6.5 (but always below 7!). The thing is not the pH, but the low density of germs and harmful bacteria. The pH, in combination with humid substances, is an important means for regulating that content. The lower the pH, the lower the concentration of germs (as a rule, at least generally speaking).
I cannot tell you generally “safe levels of change” in the aquarium, as you asked for. This is too wide a question. “Create an environment as stable as possible with the least possible concentration of germs”: that would be my recommendation. Not the one or other fix value, with one exception: the water should contain little salts (= a low value of Mikrosiemens/cm). Otherwise the tender eggs and the very young fish of our genus cannot stand the osmotic pressure. Adult fish are more resistant, but they are also adapted to very soft water.That is really interesting, I never knew that the real issue is the germs and not hypersensitivity to ph and hardness.
I have a tank being prepared for blackwater fish, I am probably going to put chocolate gouramis in it (do you think they have the same issues, sensitivity to germs more than sensitivity to water conditions?).
I have a filter with peat in it, is there any reason not to just leave peat in a filter and let that run constantly? (and periodically replace the peat as it dissolves)
I will also follow the standard method of prefiltering the r/o/ water with peat before I use it for water changes. But in the main tank is it an ok idea to just have a peat filter running all the time?The tank is a Red Sea Max 35, intended as a coral tank but I am not using its strong filtration, just its glass cage and lighting. It has stacks of driftwood and a layer of floating water sprite, a filter with peat and a sponge filter and the temperature around 80 degrees.
I wonder how many chocolate gouramis (probably selatanensis) need to be kept to distribute the aggression, I’ve seen 15 gallon tanks with about 4 and they looked ok, but I’ve heard they will kill each other also. And finally, is there much difference in keeping chocolate gouramis than licorice gouramis, as far as the requirement for germ free acid water? Since they are both from the same or similar habitats, is it very similar the requirements they have?
I’ve read chocolate gouramis are really sensitive to disease, I wonder if this is different than licorice gouramis tendencies.
This is a long, not that concise post, sorry about that. But the information you mentioned about why these fish need the conditions they need is really fascinating.So germ free water is needed- my tank has peat filtration, driftwood, and will have almond leaves as a substrate. All of this is decaying organic matter- it’s not likely to introduce germs the way a thick layer of gravel substrate would, is it?
I thought the leaves, driftwood and peat could be thought of as contributing humic substances, which is a good thing (and a quality of blackwater along with low ph and hardness and high temperature which all work together to kill most forms of life that live in freshwater habitats). But would a layer of almond leaves as a substrate and constant peat filtration make the tank not as germ free as it should be because of all the ever present decaying matter?
This is probably a VERY basic science question but I am just an aquarium hobbyist, not a scientist!Jacob, generally speaking you are right that chocolate gouramis and licorice gouramis have the same needs for their environment. I have seen tanks successfully keeping both gouramis together (but not their offspring, and that’s a pity). Your idea with the peat filter is a good idea, but take care to select the right peat; there are quite different qualities. Some are rather useless since they are pH-active to a too-low extent only. Some are dangerous because they are mixed with nutrition materials for gardening. Ask the dealer; that must not be the case! And have a test before: there must be a clear reduction of pH if you test with very soft water. (Hard water will be reduced in hardness a bit, but the important effect on pH is only a low one.So,only very soft water is reasonable). Therfore the reason for using such a peat filter system is to reduce the pH considerably in order to reduce the load with germs.
I cannot tell you in detail about Sphaerichthys; yes, they can be rather aggressive but that mus not be the case. But anyway, here is the issue Parosphromenus and they certainly will have a profit from your peat filter arrangement. Parosphromenushowever are mostly less delicate and sensitive to disease than Sphaerichthys are. Their sensitivity to diseases are well-known.
But you must obey three things:
1. generally use the softest water you can provide; nearly no hardness should be measured: “a water near to destilled water”.
2. you must change the peat regularly when the pH begins to rise considerably (so you have to control it). But beware: if you have that extremely soft water and very pH-active peat you need little amounts of peat, regularly changed however.
3. you should try to create stability. It does not suit the fish, neither Parospromenusnor Sphaerichthys, if there are rapidly changing conditions. If you have the right conditions and not many very active sumerged plants, then sometimes a permanent filtering with fresh peat is not necessary.But that you must try out.
By the way: There a measuring kits for measuring the germ content of aquarium water. These are very useful for the friends of blackwater fish, indeed.Jacob, I saw your last mailing just after having finished my reply to the former. You think in the right directions, certainly. But there is no germ-free aquarium. Tests say that the tank with the least germs contain more germs than any blackwater in nature! Your arrangement with peat filtering and almond leaves is a quite good one, but in cannot exclude the germs fully. In fact, there are certainly rather many of them.
So, as I recommended at another place, buy one of those measuring kits for germs. Then you will see.
But don’t resign: If one is conscious about that problem, one has done a big step from “normal aquaristics” to advanced Parosphromenus-aquaristics. Healthy adultParosphromenuscan stand by far more germs than they experience in nature. But adult only! Our aim is always to breed them. The problem are the eggs and the very young fish. Especially the eggs. They are very sensitive to too many germs. But again, don’t be disappointed. The harder species (as filamentosus, linkei, paludicola, even nagy)will happily rise their eggs and young if you pay a little attention to that question. The pH is the most obvious means to do that. And there you are on the right track, with peat filtering and almond leaves. And regular water change, of course. But once you have got the right turn, even the water change could be reduced (not to nil!).Hello, I can tell something about Sphaerychtis… I had 4 of S. osphromentoides in 625 L aquarium with my Satanoperca. They occupy higher part of aquarium (dim. 160x65x60) and they swimming among plenty of ‘Monstera’ roots ( I use plants above aquarium for lowering nitrogen concentration).Satanoperca ignore them , so they have full space for themselfs…. and… they become extremly agressive. Few week after I moved them to this aquarium one of them was killed by another. Few months later I saw spawn and even female swimming with her mouth full of eggs – but even in that large aqua male still chasing her and one day she jumped and die… ( I’m still angry for myself that I did’t seperate her – but I thought that in such large aquarium she will be fine…) And one more thing… Sphaerychtis is most inteligent fish I know – when Satanoperca spawned – they find every occasion to eat the young – even if I seperate brood using plexi plate – gouramis find they way..:):)
Parosphromenus in my observation are more delicate and not that agressive. But if we give them peace and quiet they show us their beauty
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