[john walsh]

I thought I should share a painful lesson I have had to learn over the past 24 hours. I have been nurturing a brood of about 25 P Nagyi for the past nine months and following a routine water change last night I have lost most of them and suspect that when I get home tonight those that remain may also have perished My error was to leave alder cones in the 20L RO filled containers I use rather than putting the cones directly into the tanks. These particular cones must have been very potent and I failed to test the water prior the change. The result was a catastrophic sudden fall in pH that I was unaware of until this morning when it was already too late. I am devastated that I changed my maintenance regime without building in sufficient checks to avert such losses. Aaaarrrrgh!!!!

[Bill Little]

John — I am so sorry to hear of your loss … I regularly toss a couple of Alder cones in my tanks when I am replacing or adding my Indian Almond leaves. I only observe minor changes in the water quality when I do so. Guess I should pay better attention to this practice.

[Russell Green]

Hi John.

I too am sorry to hear of your losses.
I do a similar thing with the alder cones when preparing water. So far I have had no problems, but I will be more observant to their effects in future.

If you need some P. Nagyi as replacements, I have some young adults you are welcome to try. Let me know.

[Dorothee Jöllenbeck-Pfeffel]

Hello!
I’m preparing my water as Pawel discribes in his thread about preparing water without peat. With peat or without peat and with elder cones extract – my pH doesn’t seem to get lower than 5,2 at the moment… Measured with electrode and with drop test and photometer …

[Tautvilas Laureckis]

Alder cones can make water too black :huh: .. If too much, no fish can be visible.. So due to this I use it only in the tank, and just a few, if black water is more acceptable for some shy species I can use more, but usually they are strong enough to use only some pieces. Often I have to remove them after week or two, because water start to get the same colour as strong black tea.. However fish do not seem to have any trouble to live their normal life at very dark water, f.e. to catch food, lie eggs.

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