Water Quality

[elmo666]

Ok, we all use it, but without complex chemical analysis, there's no way of knowing what's in our tapwater. Sure, we can test for the norm, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph gh and kh. But unless your a chemistry boffin, we're all working blind as to exactly what we are tipping in our tanks. So how do we determine what we need to add? After periods of heavy rain it seems reasonable to assume some significant run off from farmland, full of all kinds of fertilisers, pesticides etc. I wonder how much the local water authority effectively removes? How much plant ferts should we add not knowing what's there already? Right, on the flip side, if using r/o water, virtually pure, soft, and very easily altered ph in any direction, just how do we decide what to put back and at what levels?? The reason I ask is simple, not trying to be smart. 15 yrs or so ago I had single tubes, fluval 3 internal fiters, no ferts and had no probs growing plants. Now i've tried to adopt a more technically minded, informed approach, nowhere near as much succcess. So, do we mess around too much with water quality, over-complicating matters? Whats your thoughts?

 

[brian1]

I think we do mess around with the water too much, fish are more resilient than we think, and by messing around it is making them more prone to decease,and weakening there immune system, we all know if we as humans keep taking anti-biotic's, eventually they wont work as good, so long as things are ticking along ok, leave well alone, just carry on with your normal weekly tank duties.........

 

[DrRob]

We are, to be fair, keeping different fish, and growing different plants now. I can grow plants that would never have survived, but some of the older school plants do indeed do well in low tech environments.

The biggest difference I can see is speed and variety. If you get it right things grow crazily fast in a high tech system, if you don't, they don't.

As for the water, I generally stick to the system that you only do what you're willing to maintain. Given reservoir storage and such like the water coming out of the tap doesn't actually vary all that much, what fish do well in your water will always depend on what tends to come out of the tap and what you do to it afterwards.

I personally use RO, but that's got a lot to do with high ammonia and nitrate levels in the liquid rock that comes out of my tap.

 

[Andythufishman]

I agree with Brian on this, I know a lot of people who keep fish in what some people might consider less than optimal conditions and they still flourish, I know a person who keeps breeding plecs and discus in the same tank and they are wonderfully colourful, I think we should care for our fish well like any other pets but also remember that they are very adaptable animals and constantly changing their environment, wether it be water changes or rescaping can do more wrong than right in the long run

 

[snazy]

The ammount of heavy metals fish can take up and live with no adverse effects can make a human eat this fish quite sick, so normally if you use tap water, then your fish are safe enough without these being removed. The only one that you probably need completely removed from tap water is copper if you have inverts or koi fish or reef aquarium. The rest of them are just gonna do an algae bloom the most if you don't have plants to uptake them, like iron or phosphate and others.

Also, why would you add a dechlorinator that promotes slime coat if healthy fish should do that themselves? On top of that, there are claims that additives like that do add to the organic waste in a tank as well, not to mind that Api says to turn off your protein skimmer for at least an hour when adding Api stress coat. But protein skimmers reduce organic waste, so why are they recommending that?

 

[raptorrex]

most quality dechlorinators also bind heavy metals, even copper.
so they really shouldn't be a problem.
as for "slime coat enhancers and the like.
whilst I'm personally sceptical of their worth, I've seen no evidence they cause any problems.
so it seems pointless to avoid them, if that means not using the best conditioner.

personally I'm a "keep fish that suite your water" man.
remembering that fish are nowhere near as sensitive as the books might hint.