Bba V Healthy Fish

[Akasha72]

you've not mislead me hun, I'm just trying to throw other stuff in to see if there's anything there that could help you. Regarding a swinging Ph when you water change ... consider that in the wild there would be similar things going on when the rains come. We spend a lot of time trying to create the perfect enviroment for our fish and then you go and watch a video of fish in the wild and what they thrive in and think what they hell am I bothering for!
 
I've watched some video's recently of angelfish in the Amazon and the water is a thick brown sludge and they're thriving in it! 
 
I read some time back that fish take several hours - even days - to adjust to changes in Ph. The article even suggested that aclimatizing new fish is a waste of time! I wish I could remember where I read that but maybe Google might help if you want to see if you can find it. One way to possibly avoid the swing is to do smaller changes more often

 

[elmo666]

Thanks for all your input, much appreciated

 

[Akasha72]

no problem ... hopefully there was some info amongst my waffle that was useful

 

[elmo666]

There was lol, we all waffle, if only fish keeping was an exact science, more variables than a decent Chinese takeaways menu!
An update: Fish seemed more than happy after their alkaline dosing, tho tank only raised .2 ph, I know that's quite alot but the water was kept warm and added over 4hrs. Of course what's often overlooked when making these changes is the life support system. I understand our bacterial colonies are just as sensitive to big swings in ph, tho personally I have to err on the sceptical side and think if you have a good healthy filter the impact and any noticeable affects would be minimal.
So, tonight in goes another 75ltrs and again the same Sunday, by then I should see a ph close to neutral. All I have to do then is select one of the aforementioned acids to neutralize my filtered tap water.
All that sorted my attention will the return to.........aahhh BBA!!!

 

[Byron]

There was lol, we all waffle, if only fish keeping was an exact science, more variables than a decent Chinese takeaways menu!
An update: Fish seemed more than happy after their alkaline dosing, tho tank only raised .2 ph, I know that's quite alot but the water was kept warm and added over 4hrs. Of course what's often overlooked when making these changes is the life support system. I understand our bacterial colonies are just as sensitive to big swings in ph, tho personally I have to err on the sceptical side and think if you have a good healthy filter the impact and any noticeable affects would be minimal.
So, tonight in goes another 75ltrs and again the same Sunday, by then I should see a ph close to neutral. All I have to do then is select one of the aforementioned acids to neutralize my filtered tap water.
All that sorted my attention will the return to.........aahhh BBA!!!

 
I'm confused here, even after re-reading this thread.  Why are you raising the pH, or attempting to?  It is not going to stay but lower back, so you're better to leave it alone.
 
And a pH change of 0.2 is not at all significant for fish.  The normal diurnal fluctuation can be up to five decimal places.
 
Byron.

 

[Akasha72]

hmm a little confused too ... perhaps I've missed something too?
 
 
I'll use my own tank as an example cos it's easier to follow in my head.
My tank runs happily at Ph6 but my tap water is Ph7.4(ish) ... something lowers the natural water Ph within my tank (an experiment I did showed that my sand is lowering it but organics will also be playing a part, plus my non existant Kh and Gh) but it always remains stable at Ph6 once it has fallen. When I do my weekly water change I only change 7 buckets (about 40 litres and the tank is 240 litres) .... 1. because of the Ph difference and 2. because my tap water contains massive amounts of phosphate which was the cause of the imbalance that caused my BBA. That level of clean water lifts the Ph only very slightly as it mixes with the old water. Within a few hours the new water will have a Ph drop and so my tank is back to Ph6 .... making sense so far?
 
From my understanding ... Ph differences occur naturally in the wild ... usually when the rains come in the Amazon ... and so fish have evolved to deal with slight changes. 
 
Now from the things I've learned over the years a stable Ph is better than a swinging Ph but a slight change at water change time won't cause any problems. If the Ph was swinging from 6 to 7.8 on a day to day basis then there's a big problem and the fish are gonna get sick. But as Byron says 0.2 is nothing to worry about.
 
I've gathered your keeping Discus from this thread. Discus are soft acidic water loving fish (one reason I was considering them for my own tank as that is what my water is naturally) If your Ph is settling around 6 then the Discus will love it in there .... if your tap or RO is slightly higher then changing smaller amounts of water more often would avoid that swing.
 
I admit to knowing nothing about RO water as I've never used it and so for those questions you'll need someone else. Perhaps I'm waffling again though .... I'll shuffle off now  

 

[elmo666]

Ok, it's obvious I need to go backwards a little here and clarify my thought pattern as everything above is great input/comments/experience.
1. I started out dabbling with discus because putting marine aside I'd done mixed community, large Oscars and cats, lake Malawi, lake Tanganyika, angels, parrot fish and had always been drawn to discus. However, in my youth, well 20's they had a bad rep for being particularly specialist and hard to keep. My reading, Akasha, made me aware of there Amazonian requirements and love of live food/beef heart. So now, 20 years later I decided to indulge my fascination.
2. I went down the route of r/o, water softening resins (chamber after r/o membrane) and peat filtration.
All was fine in my first corner tank, bought off eBay after a long break due to sudden onset of epilepsy in 2009.
Then onto my pride and joy I have now, all new, bought in May and thoroughly planned out from 6months prior...........have had diatoms, ph crashes, massive nitrates with phosphate along for the ride, various worms in my discus, hassle with faulty TMC co2 Equiptment, but probably the worst and most distressing after the time, effort and expense put into my plants, bba.
So, the causes?? Well, first off the Aquagro nutrasoil. States it leaches ammonia when first in water. This I used to "feed" a fishless cycle, good idea in my mind. I suspect it actually releases alot more of its "slow release" than it would like us to believe. And at £120 for my tank I expected better. The tetra complete placed below my substrate previously gave far superior plant growth and root development.
3 My own unfamiliarity with r/o and adjusting/correcting it also caused problems I suspect. Then onto lighting. I didn't think to check what tubes are supplied as standard with aqua one complete aquariums. Turns out the answer is not great ones. It wasn't until a friend came around and saw the tank for the first time since my old one went and commented how bright it was that I even considered them an issue. Well, when I did put specialist plant tubes on and the room became less of a tanning studio did I realise my error. So bba had a strong foothold.
Now, the evolution of my thoughts again. With all the water quality issues I began using polyfilters, purigen, algal treatments and through this the peat filtration went, I learnt that beefheart is mainly used by breeders in bare tanks to bulk up juveniles quickly and equally quickly removed if uneaten, something that is impossible in my fully planted tank, so that went west despite having a stockpile in the freezer I'd made from quite costly ingredients.
4 Another lesson I learned is that soft acid water is now only a requirement of wild caught discus as all the captive bred, which mine are, are mainly kept in what's readily available locally without any treatment or adjustment and that these fish will be more than happy up in the 7's, low hardness not an issue unless you're breeding and wanting good egg productivity.
So, here I am. Looking at simplifying what I now believe to be, fo me at least, an overly complicated maintenance regime. No nor acid/mineral corrected to, beefheart etc, as vac cleaning in my set up is near impossible. I'll stick with prima, frozen discus pres, brineshimp etc and speed up water preparation time from 4hrs (slow to) to 20 through my HMA.
ONLY, lol, that flipping BBA to sort now.....hope it's not gonna mean a full strip down and new plants to loose the spores, don't fancy cycling those 2 eheims again.

 

[Akasha72]

hello again .... well reading that I can only say one thing ... you've made things hard for yourself! Not a critasism so don't take it that way ... just that you've got about it the hard way and from what I can gather -purely because you wanted the best for your fish. Your reminding me of me! Yep, I've gone round the hard way myself a few times now!
 
I have some major health problems myself and so I decided that I needed to simplify things. Keep fish that are happy in what comes from my tap, feed them easy but nutritous foods (they get some frozen blocks 3 times a week - usually something like bloodworms, artemia and mysis - they seem to be favourites for my lot. Rest of the time they get Tetra prima and pellets for the cories/algae eaters) keep the lugging of buckets to a minimum (although I think a python is on my shopping list for this year!) and generally not do much messing about. I add easycarbo and ferts when I remember but there's nothing special going in there.
 
Like you, I got hit with BBA ... horrible scurge is the stuff. It drove me to nearly giving up. If you go to my thread on sharing my tank (members photo section) there's a photo of my bogwood covered in thick BBA. You'll see why I understand where your coming from.
 
As you say Discus used to be regarded as hard to keep but as you also say - that is no longer the case. I very nearly went for Discus myself but with a community tank happily ticking away I realised through research that some of my stock wouldn't work well with Discus and so I have put them 'on the back burner' ... something for later maybe.
I have a friend that keeps Discus (he has a marine tank too) he's a member of this forum and I've been hoping he'd pop in as his knowledge of everything you've talked about is far better than mine. 
 
Two questions for you .... what is the Ph of your tap water and what does the Ph settle at in your tank?

 

[Byron]

I too feel that the simpler we make things, the easier it will be to maintain water stability, and that is very important.  The hobby is continually being inundated with new gadgets, substances/chemicals to add, filters and media that claim to eliminate water changes, and so forth.  I guess I was lucky that my foray into fish in a serious way (as opposed to that first, second and third attempt way back when I was still in school) was in the early 1980's when it was still "normal" to follow the basics.  So having learned that success was easily attained if one follows certain basics, my inclination to spend money on expensive equipment, water additives, so-called plant substrates, etc. was non-existent.  
 
I guess one could say that my "grounding" in the hobby was good, thanks in large measure to having an incredible hobbyist-owned and run local store.  Today everyone is on the internet--we hardly knew what a computer was back then 

 --and while it is a tremendous source of information that can help, it is also detrimental in that we begin to think that we "need" all this paraphernalia to run a fish tank.  Of course, we don't.
 
To some of your specifics.  A thriving planted tank does not need special substrates or soil, nor CO2, nor bright lighting.  As I think you're realizing, each of these carries a set of problems.  Your selection of plant species will be more limited with a natural or low-tech method, and how far up the "tech" ladder you want to climb depends upon your goal.
 
I am certainly a minimalist when it comes to my method for planted tanks.  Play sand (or fine gravel in the river habitat), moderate lighting of the correct spectrum, with once weekly nutrient fertilization is about as simple as it gets.  But the attached photos of three of my seven tanks will illustrate what this creates; I have fish-first tanks that happen to have live plants, and this is my aim.  It took a bit of back and forth to find the balance between light duration and nutrients (ferts), but all of these tanks have now been running as you see them for at least two years [I reset all of them by replacing the gravel with play sand 2-3 years ago].
 
Byron.

 

[elmo666]

Yo, Akasha. Well, glad to see the back of that 70hr week, working alone on high maintenance apartments and rooms in thre in deceme hotels where I work doing the repairs/refurbs after stag/hen groups trash them has begun to wear me down. Especially as I'm only getting on average 3/4 hrs sleep each night due to severe neck and back pain following a drunk driving smashing into me in a large transit van mid December. Moan over lol.
Tap water is ph7.8
My tank was ph 6.2-6.5 though coming up now. the magic pen just registered 6.9, will have to take another reading tonight when the co2 goes off, 8:30, see what it is then. Looks like I'm going to have to adjust the tap water as I'd like to balance everything out around neutral. DEFINITELY won't be using phosphoric acid unless I can see zero in my tank at some point and if it was to stay there if I did use it.

 

[Akasha72]

yeah, I'd be inclined to not add too much ... but that's just me. I keep things low tech, low maintenance as explained in my post above. See how it goes ... I've kind of run out of idea's now 

 
 
Byron ... your tank looks lovely. It is totally possible to have healthy plants without too much effort and your photo's prove it

 

[Byron]

Tap water is ph7.8
My tank was ph 6.2-6.5 though coming up now. the magic pen just registered 6.9, will have to take another reading tonight when the co2 goes off, 8:30, see what it is then. Looks like I'm going to have to adjust the tap water as I'd like to balance everything out around neutral. DEFINITELY won't be using phosphoric acid unless I can see zero in my tank at some point and if it was to stay there if I did use it.

 
Why around neutral?  You really are better off letting the water stabilize on its own, and see where that ends.  The fish will be much less stressed.  A pH below 7, in the mid 6's, would be best for discus, regardless of where they came from.  But again, let the tank stabilize before even considering any adjustment which will likely not be necessary regardless.
 
When testing tank water pH, remember that there is a diurnal fluctuation so it will usually be lower in the early morning and higher in the late afternoon; and here the "morning" and "afternoon" refers to the tank lighting period.  When attempting to ascertain pH stability, the readings should always be roughly the same time each day.  Another point is to use daylight but not direct sunlight to read the colour.  Artificial light is made up of wavelengths and different bulbs/tubes will distort the colours on the card and in the test tube.  Daylight is best, but whatever light you use make sure it too is consistent.
 
Byron.

 

[elmo666]

Morning Byron. Why around neutral you have asked, fair enough question my friend, I'll try to explain my thinking....,
BBA aside, my discus and their tank mates are more than happy at 6.5 dropping to around 6.2 during the lighting/co2 period. This environment is currently created using r/o water corrected with TMC pro discus mineral and phosphoric acid for matching ph. Now, as said by myself, this involves a lengthy 3-4hr collection time followed by overnight heat/circulation in 3x 25ltr buckets. I now think this is proving too costly, taking too long and I want to simplify the whole process by just using my HMA filter which draws off the water in 30 mins and needs no correction. However, my tap water is 7.8, too high I know for use in my tank even though I'm aiming to raise it from where it is so overall I'm gonna settle for neutral. The only thing now is cutting out the phosphoric acid and finding a better alternative that won't contribute to algae in the same way too much phosphate does.

 

[Akasha72]

I would be interested to see if your tap water does the same as mine - ie: drops naturally once it goes in the tank. If your tap water is naturally soft it's possible it has a low Gh and Kh and so Ph drop off can happen.
 
I'd be tempted to draw some tap water, dechlorinate it and put some in a clean glass vessal and test it daily to see what it does over a period of a week. If you want to replicate the tank you could add a handful of your substrate to the water. 
 
If it does what mine does and drops naturally to below 6 then you've got perfect Discus water coming straight from your tap. If it does that all you need to do is change smaller amounts of water more often as the fresh water (even though it's higher in Ph to begin with) will only raise the Ph very slightly and then fall gradually. The fishes won't even notice

 

[elmo666]

Aaaahhhh, lol, this is getting complicated again Akasha. We all have different perceptions of our tank and maintenance regimes. I'm going to outline mine, putting ph, kh etc (as I understand its kh that has more bearing on buffering capacity than gh).
LIFESTYLE: I work pretty long hrs on a weekly basis. Out at 6:30/7:00, get home between 6pm and 8pm depending on workload. This limits the time I allocate to water changes so as not to make it a chore and spoil my pleasure. One mid week, one sat/su, 50-65ltrs each time
PLANTS: Owing to the above-mentioned, there's no way I want to or could go down the estimative index route, and as such my dosing with ferts has a certain cost attached to keep them at a reasonably consistent level.
COST: Heating my water to 84 degrees to match the tank overnight, heater in each bucket, and twice weekly dosing of ferts soon mounts up especially with the pro discus mineral I used for r/o correction at the moment.
DISRUPTION: Discus are touchy little sods, they don't like to much disturbance in the tank too often, so the midweek change is simply water out and back in after lights out, the weekend change involves a general tidy up, plant pruning etc if needed. Fortnightly one of my externals is cleaned, gently, to keep things ticking over nicely. Every three months I take of the tubing, uplifts, returns, spray bars and give them a good clean to lose that filthy brown gunk we all hate.
Now, let me outline once again my change of routine:
I'm tired of waiting hours to draw off my r/o. I'm not convinced the correcting minerals, even though they're £14 a tub, are providing everything needed. I think using my HMA filter with 30 minutes collecting time and no additional correction needed is a better option.
I use a ph pen, calibrated monthly, to keep an eye on my ph all the time. In using my HMA filter I'm producing water with a ph considerably higher than my tanks current ph. So, for me at least, it makes sense to gradually bring the tank ph up away from the low 6's whilst bringing down the tap water to move towards the tank, and hopefully things will level out at 6.8-7.2 where I'd be happy to leave them.