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Hey everyone, I would not worry about water changes being dangerous. I have done many changes in tanks where I did not know clutches were in and nothing wrong happened. And I have to say that I do really big changes, sometimes even 80+% of water exactly for the reasons that Rafael stated. I use prepared water with stable pH and I care about the temperature being the same, but still if you do this to susceptipble fish, you would certainly experience problems. And after freeswimming, the fry is even harder, so after this experience, I even raised Paros fry in small bowls and changed 1/2 a water twice daily to get rid of hungry rotifers before replacing them with fresh.
Hello Josh,
It is nice that you are becoming observant and you have identified the problem. 🙂
However, if you are using RO or rain water, there is no need to use any dechlorinator. RO has a patron with activated carbon that will do the job (Make sure it is in the system and replace it properly otherwise your RO membrane is at serious risk). If you prefere to use tapwater to prepare the acidifying concentrate for the RO water, dependent on your tap you should be able to use it after like 1/2 hour if it is chlorinated by gaseous chlorine or it is better to not use it at all if there are some chloramines in it for example as they could create some harmful substances together with the peat, that could stay in the water. In such case, for small volume of “normal” water, you could use RO and remineralize it with for example Sachem Equlibrium. You can drop such water over peat to get similar kind of acidifying concentrate too. I hope my explanation is clear 😀 You only need to dechlorinate big volumes of tapwater for normal tanks, if you are dealing with some badly chlorinated water or you have no space and time to let it sit for a while.I totally agree with Ghia. That is what buffers do. They are able to maintain the pH at certain value even at very low concentrations. Use the “aforementioned water” for the further partial changes and the pH should decrease sooner or later.
[quote=”AlmightyJoshaeus” post=5528]’
PH: about 6.1 (don’t know why it won’t go lower…)
TDS: 19 ppm or 30 microsiemensWater changes: 1 gallon/3.78 litres a week. Rainwater/distilled water is prepared a week before by soaking with 1/2 cup peat moss.
[/quote]If the pH will go any lower easily depends on the buffering capacity of the water. That 30μS comes from something and in the best scenario, you would like these ions to not interfere with your lowering attempts.
Soaking peat in soft water is very inefficient. What Ghia suggest is the best way to prepare the water. Soak alder cones and different leaves in soft water, but that water must contain no alcalinity (or what is wrongly called carbonate hardness). From your description, I am worried that is not the case and therefore the process of lowering the pH will take time. If you already bought peat, at least use it efficiently. Take a PET bottle and remove the bottom. Stuff it with peat (not to densely). Put some filtration foam in to the bottle neck. Turn it upside down. Put some prepared clear container under the bottle neck to catch the prepared water.
Using this kind of device (it is called torfkanone in German :D) Leave a little space in the bottle at the top, where you will be able to pour like bigger glass of water. Start adding water glass after glass, untill you soak the peat abundantly and then leave it alone to drop in to the container. You may either use your 19 ppm water and drop the whole volume of water over the peat or better drop some tapwater over it. Dropping tap is much more efficinet, as peat is a ion echanger so if you have more kations to exchange for H+, what you will get, will be extremely acidic concentrate, that you may use to prepare the water for the tank. You simply use like 1/2 liter in to 10 liters of pure RO or rain water. You may use the peat this way for many months and you are able to prepare the water over night. However, it is best not to use peat and support such destruction of nature like peat mining.
Using RO water does not necessarily have to mean zero hardness. That is why I was asking. Your RO is probably removing ions with overall efficacy around +-95% ( some membranes are a little better or worse + it depends on the pressure, temperature and so on) So dependent on the input, one may be getting RO water with 0,3° of alkalinity for example, which may not be measurable by simple DGH drop test, but may be suffiecient to harm the eggs. Of course, if you have some mixbed patron at the end of the system, or if you drop the water over bigger amount of peat, than it should remove the residual hardness. If there is any, lowering the pH even more could help too, there is usually a relation between these factors, so the higher the hardness and/or alkalinity, the lower pH may be needed for the eggs to develope. Of course there is some range of conditions where this is applicable.
I would worry about the litter at the latest. I would check the water first to be sure.
I think the best way to deal with it is to obtain some better quality digital device and learn how to take care of the electrode. It takes just about the same time as the use of drop test, but you get much more accurate readings. If you sum the money spent on higher quality drop tests over time, it may be even much cheaper. The pool stuff may not even measure in the range needed for Paro tanks. + it is always hard to use drop tests in dark stained water.
Am I right that the eggs usually fall down from the nest during the second or third day? If so, how exactly you prepare the water and what do you feed your breeders. It seems like the conditions are ok for fertilization but not for further developement. Any chance that your readings (for example the so called “carbonate hardness”) could be wrong?
I agree with Ghia. Definitely no reason to be concerned about it. I think the relation between softwater and oodinium would be hard to prove. I would assume these problems are closely related with badly handled tanks and unstable conditions + the fact that people do not know the life cycle of the parasite and therefore do not understand how to treat it well. I have kept many species of different fish in soft and acidic water and I never had one single problem with velvet. On the other hand, I have seen countless cases in shops, where the fish are kept in tap.
Hello everyone and welcome malikmoloch,
Helene is very right here, more informamation on water quality could help. My experience with people starting blackwater acidic tanks is that many are scared of low TDS and so low pH. So they set up the parameters to what they think are low but still reasonable levels. Sadly, such conditions are the most unstable one could imagine and you end up many possible sudden changes. You name it: Different forms of nitrogen going back and forth quickly, high bacterial load, unstable pH itself. So yes, in stable tank paros could live in pH around 6, but if you are setting up a new tank and you are not experienced balckwater aquarist, aim for pH bellow 6 and very low TDS (15-30) with plenty of humic acids and leaf or alder cone extract that will stain it like a tea. Alder cones are great stuff to lower pH quickly and keep it stable + they release great antibacterial substances and you will see how paros love such water. Make sure you have zero alkalinity (“carbonate hardness” as they wrongly call it) and start with very soft water. The thing is that the “reasonable compromise” here is the worst way to go imo. I hope that helps and cheer up for next and better try 🙂
I mean- wow. I have no idea why people do this on Aquabid where you can leave feedback for every transaction. Just in case you happened to not leave one, please do. My experience with buing killifish eggs there is very positive but that might come from the fact that I know who to buy from. It is unpleasant but as you say it, no Paros harmed is good result after all. I wish success with some other species that you get, I know how it feels to badly want a species and how these experiments become tempting 🙂
Hello and welcome,
Just a first quick help.
1. Please do not use peat extract from garden shop unless you make sure it does not contain any additinal fertilizers or other substances. It is very likely it will not help you adjust the pH, I would assume that commercial peat extract would be buffered so that it is not too acidic. That of course means it would be useless for bringing the pH down.
2. Humic substances will not harm the parasites, but if you use the right humic substances, they will of course help the fish, lower the stress and help heal the skin. The lack of zooplankton in black acidic water is mostly caused by the lack of bacteria in the first place. In case you will be forced to treat the fish, avoid using medication that contains malachite green in acidic water. The toxicity goes over the roof. I would try to use quinine based treatment. Also if you use something that would truly contain humic and fulvic acids or their salts, keep in mind that these humic substances really influence bioavailability of many substances and for example pesticides administrated with addition of lignohumate have the same effects with much lower doses. The same may apply for the treatment. I would like to help more but my Paro experience is not extensive enough + even thought I have pretty extensive experience with other black water species I never had to treat any of them for external parasites. Most of my other species are extremely susceptible to commonly used treatments and I just have to be very careful to not get in such situations. Also “humic substances” are super complex topic and we know very little about them, besides their positive effect on plants and animals. I think Peter and Bernd will be able to give you more practical advice with regards to possible treatment.
3. In case you want to have other fish with Paros, go for some really black water Boraras species, uropthalmoides are not the case and you keep both fish in borderline conditions. One more advice if you do not mind. Never trust any fish or plants no matter how famous and known is the breader. As it is with humans, some populations are highly susceptible to certain viruses, bacteria and parasites, some are not or not nearly to the same extent. The fact that you have not seen fish in the tanks does not mean that they were not in there short time before and these do not have to be fish, for example snails are carriers of many diseases transmitable to fish. Quarantine everything always.
If the male is nowhere to be seen, I think the option of him moving the clutch elsewhere is very likely. I have males who can stand quite some action around the tank, but so much manipulation could have easily been just enough 🙂
Edit: but adding leaves is good for all the reasons you have mentioned 🙂
