Ph Shock........?

[Ava_Banana]

Soo..........as per this thread....http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=155872

I had bought a pair of Kribs along with a number of bleeding heart tetras to go in my 55gallon corner tank.

Great......I watched them get chased round the tank by the "youth" who served me at the LFS.......the Kribs were a pain, keep darting beneath a couple of lumps of wood etc, etc.....I did suggest using two nets.....but hey....he's the expert.

....got home and gradually introduced them to the tank...(yes, should have used a quarantine tank...but I don't have a spare..... ).........floated them in their bags for 20 minutes, all lights off, then gradually introduced tank water into the bag....and I mean gradually....eventually, only put one light on for the evening, so the newbies weren't too stressed.

Mrs Krib....looked fantastic, showing off her colours....searching round the tank...having a good explore.....Mr Krib just sat on the bottom......he moved round here and there, but didn't really get into the swing of things....he then found a little cave and stayed there....I put it down to "new surroundings"...

...Next morning I went to work, my wife called me to say that Mr Krib was a gonner. I rang LFS and arranged to pop in this morning with frozen fish (they wanted me to put it in the freezer) and a water sample.

So I did, I arranged that I would get into work a couple of hours late and went to the LFS.

After ten minutes of testing he announced that the fish had died from PH shock. . He had measured the PH at 5.4......which although low, I wouldn't have thought would cause this problem in one specific fish. The Nitrate and Ammonia were a little high, but, hey, I had added 10 fish the previous day.

Soooo, my morning was not completely wasted.....I will invest in a decent test kit myself so I can go in armed with results they will believe (sorry sir, but your test kit is over a year old and may not be accurate), I didn't get any "fish credit".......and I have one lonely female krib..

Anyway.......rant over, my own fault, but just wanted to get it off my chest.....but your opinions on the PH level are welcome....

55gallon corner tank, fairly heavily planted, filtered by an EHEIM 2328.


P.S.......some of the issues that I had were:

He didn't extract the fish very carefully in the shop, he didn't take the wood out, he just chased, and chased and chased, moving the wood as he went, fish getting bopped on the head etc...

They didn't tape down the corners of the bag the fish were in......I didn't notice this until I got them home.

They were efficient but not hugely helpful when I took him back. I was told that it was PH shock and they offered me some PH buffer to buy. It is difficult to explain, but I just felt that I was "just another fish-buyer", there was no empathy or explanation.

And certainly no discussion..........PH Shock is what was diagnosed.......that was the end of the story.

 

[WILDER]

What your tank ph, if there a big difference in ph it can take hours to climatise fish.
Say if the lfs was 6.5 and yours was 5.4 it should take an hour to get the ph to 6.3, if you don't do it properly the fish will go into ph shock.

Here some info.
http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...?article_id=392

 

[Bignose]

pH shock is often cited as killer, but what is known about the physiology of fish today shows that most can change pH fairly quickly, especially if the pH is in the 6+ range. The article Wilder linked to had some interesting things to say, though it did not talk about GH and KH specifically, which I think is far more important. The quote below I posted on this forum some time back, but basically it cites a reference that pH can change very quickly, depending upon if the salt transport is favorable. Unfortunatly, favorable is a very realtive term, but quick changes in hardness (which would be very similar to changes in salt) are much more stressful of the fish than most changes in pH.

According to Evans, Piermarini, and Choe "The Multifunctional Fish Gill: Dominant Site of Gas Exchange, Osmoregulation, Acid-Base Regulation, and Excretion of Nitrogenous Waste" Physiology Review 2005, the return of blood towards the control pH is primarily due to adjustments of blood bicarbonate concentrations via exchange of acid-base equivalents at the gills. Over 90
% of the action occurs at the gills.

Basically, what is boils down to is that the fish exchanges CO2, Na+, and Cl- at the gills until the pH balance between the water and their internals is just the way they want it. Another quote from the above article: "Although variable with the type and extent of the acid-base disturbance, compensatory transport is usually activated within 20-30 min of the disturbance and can reach net-acid or net-base excretion rates of 1,000 micromol per kg per hour."

If I just let the flux rate be 100 micromol per kg per hour, I think that that means that the fish can change its internal pH around 4 units per hour per kg of the fish or faster down to a pH of 4.0 (after that the time starts increasing exponentially, i.e. 10 hours to get down to 3.0) I actually don't know what the internal pH of a fish is... anyone?. So, smaller fish (smaller kg) can change their pH faster -- makes sense, smaller circulatory system, easy to change concentrations in a smaller volume.

What is really interesting is that the acid-base exchange rate is also dependent upon the salt (Na+ and Cl-) solution, so GH and KH play a much larger role than may be usually suspected. This thread http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=123070 started just the other day linked to a site whose author deduced this relationship from experience.

So, it appears if the salts in the water are favorable, most aquarium fish can adapt to a change in pH pretty quickly -- in a matter of minutes really. But, if the changes in salt and total dissolved solids are big, the fish may not be able to use its ability to adjust its pH and that causes shock. In a funny analogy, a change in TDS is to fish's ability to change its pH like kryptonite is to Superman's super strength.

 

[Ava_Banana]

Thanks for the replies.

The shop was pretty local to me, so in theory the water was the same hardness........

......pehaps I had been a little sloppy with my maintenance........I am now planning a more rigorous schedule.

 

[guppymonkey]

Have you tested your pH for yourself? Sometimes pet stores can be wrong. Did they use liquid test kits or those little paper test strips? The strips are not as accurate and sometimes when they are bought in bulk (as pet stores usually do) they get contaminated, like if they somehow accidentally got a little wet, and then throw the tests off. A pH of 5 is kinda low for most tanks but most fish are adaptable. Does the pet store use a pH buffer on their water? In most areas the pH doesn't change dramatically enough to have a fish go into pH shock, unless there are differing water supplies such as wells or things like that.

 

[Ava_Banana]

Have you tested your pH for yourself? Sometimes pet stores can be wrong. Did they use liquid test kits or those little paper test strips? The strips are not as accurate and sometimes when they are bought in bulk (as pet stores usually do) they get contaminated, like if they somehow accidentally got a little wet, and then throw the tests off. A pH of 5 is kinda low for most tanks but most fish are adaptable. Does the pet store use a pH buffer on their water? In most areas the pH doesn't change dramatically enough to have a fish go into pH shock, unless there are differing water supplies such as wells or things like that.

Thanks........the LFS had a digital PH meter........hence they were so "accurate".....


I didn't have a ph tester available.......but am getting a test kit this weekend....... oh well........

 

[00mitomk]

realli annoys me whn u seen the guys in yer lfs has hired some kid to get fish out tanks and he is like chasing the fish and then get them out and plops them in the water adds air and put in a carryer bag i wish thy took alot more care and hired people who understood fish get STRESSED

M i l es