Conductivity: how low may it be?

[Dorothee Jöllenbeck-Pfeffel]

Hello!
I have the impression, that the water chemistry in aquaristic tanks is quite complicated … there are so many parameter which can barely be measured or found out…

At the moment for example I wash my black peat granules before using them till they don’t let increase the conductivity any more ( the first watering has shown 250 µS instead of 9 µS!, and it is german black peat granules for aquaristic purposes)…

I measure every week one day after water change pH and conductivity.
Our tap water seems to be rather clean at the moment, my osmosis plant produces 9 µS.

Three paro tanks have around 24 µS and a pH around 4,5, but the “oldest” tank, that for my linkei breeding parents has at the moment 9 µS and also 4,5 pH. Do I have to worry, that the pH would fall down too low? Or is it o.k.? Of course I have lots of humin and fluvial stuff in the water too …
Perhaps I could say, with that conductivity I wouldn’t have to change the water every week, but I feed rather generous because I guess there are already again little hungry Parobabies hiding, I think it is advisable to do so, to keep bacteria-pressure low.

[Peter Finke]

Dorothee, I like this mailing of yours very much. Reading it, one can imagine how intensely you try to cover the special needs of our fishes. And there are some questions open.

First, the peat granules. Peat is not peat, the quality differs very much. Your contribution tells us that even peat granules manufactured especially for aquaristic purposes are sometimes not to be recommended. It proves that the aquarium industry is not really conscious about the needs aquarists have, but vey conscious about their own needs: to sell and to earn money. Good peat does not enlarge the conductivity, and only this quality should be used for selling to aquarists. But they sell everything what looks like “peat” and could be transformed in those granules, one package looking like the other.

Sometimes you can be lucky and get good peat much cheaper in the gardening shops (if you manage to avoid stuff which is enriched with minerals and fertilizers), but often you have the same problem. I suppose it is connected with the fact that harvesting peat is no longer as easy and cheap as it was decades ago. In principle a good development, conserving the peat swamps in our own countries. But isn’t it necessary, consequently, to think of using peat at all for our aquarium purposes? I don’t use it any longer since years. To lower the pH we have alternative means. I admit, the acids must be tested equally whether they are good for our purposes or enhance the conductivity, too. But there are forms that are quite OK, and with respect to the very soft waters we have to be influenced, only very small quantities are necessary.

Secondly, the conductivity. Your osmosis plant does work very well if you receive 9 Microsiemens/cm. I know of no natural Paro-habitat that had lower values. But for aquarium purposes I think this is too low, for the small amount of water is not capable buffering the many influences by feeding, dark-light-changes and corresponding plant activity. For most species of Paros a pH between 20 and 60 seems to be quite in order; there may be some (ornaticauda, parvulus, maybe some variants of the bintan-harveyi-group, including phoenicurus) that should be bred in water not exceeding 20 to 30 Microsiemens. So, normally you should add a small amount of tap water to the water from the osmosis-plant; but I think you do anyway.

Thirdly, water change. The first is (and you say it yourself), we cannot measure everything that happens in our tanks. Most of the daily regular or irregular procedures influenced by the feeding of our fish or the activity of plants remain hidden for us. Therefore, the regular water change that you practice every week is good, better: It is exemplary. You must be praised for it. It’s a very good example for newcomers.

But we all know that this regularity is hardly to be sustained if your array of small tanks becomes bigger and bigger. You can do so caring for three or five small Paro-tanks, but when there are twenty or more, it becomes impossible.

Now, experience shows that our fish don’t die immediately if you change to longer intervals in water change. This is indeed recommendable if your fish breed nearly continously. This is not the case in nature; they breed after the raining season has begun, breed for some weeks, and then stop. If they survive their first year (most do not) they breed again in the next season, not earlier. Mostly, the next generation is more or less the next breeding generation.

This is entirely different in the aquarium. We are used to have the same animals for years. And continous water change in combination with continous good feeding often results in continuous breeding. This in unnatural and will result in earlier illness or death. The consequence shoud be that you shoukld not try to keep every Paro-tank continously at the same optimum level, but to allow some of your fish from time to time a resting pause as they know from nature.

This amounts to the following: Beginners must learn the regular, continuous water change and the continuous feeding with changing food of high nutritious value. But having learned this, they could or should decrease their striving for a permanent 100 percent optimum of all water and food values to a system of changing levels that does resemble the natural conditions better than the all-time 100 percent system. This does not mean to forget about water change, of course not, but it may be helpful for your fish to reduce the intensity for some weeks (even months) and to enhance it again after that time in order to stimulate your fish to a new period of breeding activity.

So I conclude that you could indeed omit water change fpr some time, but you must watch your fish intensely. Illness begins hardly to perceive, Oodinium for instance could take over but you do not see it directly on your fish for long a time. If they scratch on a plant or a piece of wood it is the case. It’s better not to wait for this. Therefore, I have once argued for measuring the germ density (which unfortunately is not offered by the aquarium industry because they like dying fish: You must buy new ones). If there woud be more blackwater enthusiasts they would have discovered that market-gap, for sure. In the internet, you can find that good kits for measuring the germ density are offered by several manufacturers. They are equally easy to handle than the pH- or hardness-kits.

But you can do the most by good, close, intelligent observation.

[Peter Finke]

A short supplement to my former posting.

The conductivity value of 9 in your linkei-tank is too low, I think. P. linkei do not need that, and in order to keep the pH stable it should be alittle higher, at least 20 or better 40 Microsiemens. But I must admit: it’s an advice from a precaution point only.

I have never experienced in a good blackwater aquarium such things happen as a sudden decline of the pH to really dangerous values, as it sometimes ahppens in normal aquariums. The one thing is that our Paros are accustomed to very low values; the other is that the leaves, the humic substances and other organic material is buffering the system against heavy oscillations. To a certan extent the humic sustances have a similar function than the calcium has in other water systems: to prevent too heavy fluctuation of vital values. Not in detail, but in the general result: keeping the system within boundaries that are suited to its inhabitants.

[Bernd Bussler]

I’m thinking like Peter. But I have to defend the Peat without I would be the Peat today not where I am now.
Torfgranulat I wash not. I screened it out so that the dust content is as small as possible and then I cook it in the normal water at once, so it does not float on the surface but falls to the ground.
Sure, the conductance is high, he makes other types of peat also, I have not found a peat of the conductance does not increase and experiment with acids I think is very questionable, I work occasionally with 30% hydrochloric acid but also only with refurbishment and without fish, also drives the conductance in the height,. After the second or third water change but this is over. I think that the pH value is critical to a low number of bacteria only in part. The regular water changes, I consider it more important to me once with 50% doing water change a week.
I know Paro aquariums that are heavily planted, also has the following value for the pH and buffers sharply, an aquarium with lots of plants tends always to a neutral pH value. Of course juveniles grow even in such aquariums. Plants also influence the conductance. I myself use only rain water, conductivity 8-20, and have only plants in the aquarium where I’m raising pups, otherwise only peat, leaves and algae that thrive. But I also have to constantly check and can use any hiding places.
Do not make it complicated in nature and not everything goes according to Paros, Paros is there the need to frequently change and adapt to poor conditions.
Water changes, conductance to 80, best food and plenty of rest so that you get the most species tightened, with or without plants or turf or acids or or ……… ……… most Paros are harder to take in as we assume. Using this method I have two clutches again yesterday with about 60 juveniles (Pekan Nanas tweedei) get. :blush:

[Peter Finke]

I am a friend of Bernd and an admirer of his successes and his devotion to our fish since many years already. This is exemplary in the world of the Paro-enthusiasts.

But I want to repeat that the ease of the old aquarists to recommend peat for filtering and other purposes in aquaristcs is for ever gone. We have a problem if we condemn the destruction of peat swamps in South-east Asia, the habitats of our Paro-fishes, on the one hand, and buy peat for our nice aquariums on the other. Although it is a tiny quantity in relation to the mass which is used for burning or gardening or medical reasons (peat-baths), it is a step in the global destruction of the peat heritage on our earth.

Why not say: Goodbye peat, rest in peace where you originated by nature in some thousands of years; it was nice, you were very helpful to us, but nowadays we don’t need you any longer for gardening, bathing or fishkeeping. There are other measures which could be applied for the same aim.

[Dorothee Jöllenbeck-Pfeffel]

The question of peat makes me think – even in Germany we have problems to preserve the moore …and the garden products I do not trust.

And perhaps one reason why peat makes the conductivity higher is, because it had been dried and so began to dissolve?

But I also don´t want to work with chemicals.
Perhaps alder cones and leaves will be enough?

I will give my P. linkei tap water, as long as the conductivity is again 20 or 30 µS. But the pH is still stable.

I´ve lowered temperature in the P.linkei breeding tank to give them a rest.

[Dorothee Jöllenbeck-Pfeffel]

To measure the germ density there are products available to measure the water of water beds. I´ve already used that test kits, and had good results. They are not so expensive.

[Bernd Bussler]

Of course we should deal responsibly with peat, I use also no large quantities and when the peat used up, worn out is it will of course continue to be used. Maybe jamand an idea what we take to conserve peat, easy to obtain, is safe and applicable to everyone.

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