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Still losing fish, is it co2?

dw1305 said:
Not more stable, but much less likely to contain chemicals like chloramine etc.
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I think there's a high degree of certainty that Chloraminated water comes out the taps on a regular basis in the Devon region, there are lots of other remedial actions to make it pipe safe and potable according to this DEFRA report on South West water from 2012, it's very detailed (I found this earlier and gave it a really good skim read, I'm just glad I found it again to link to it), there's a few follow up reports out there also (I also super skim read the 2016 report). You may be able to pinpoint issues in your water supply quality down to specicfics for your exact location (where things have breached guidelines there is a section at the end that states remedial action to be carried out, some of which I saw was pending until 2015). It's worth giving it a read to see if anything stands out for your location, find out what local reservoir your water is sourced and compare to the reports.

🙂
 
sparkyweasel said:
Is this a test kit where you count the drops of dye added to a sample until the colour changes?
What you can do, is put the one drop into twice as much water, equivalent to half a drop in the normal sample. Even four times the water for the equivalent of a quarter drop. Depending on the test kit, it may gey difficult to see the colour change, as the dye is more diluted. Although, if your KH is under 1⁰, I don't think you need to get any more precise than that.
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Good idea sparkyweasel.

It was more to prove the KH was dropping further that’s all as it’s 1 drop already. Yes the API one does this.


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The water report for Something Fishy's area is very soft but quite puzzling (to me) on Ph.

28 parts per million (so his substrate or hardscape seems to be adding some on top of that) Clark 2º, French 3º, German 2º so it is very very soft water. The Ph though on the report fluctuates from 7.1ph to 9.4ph with an average of 8.42ph. Seems like a high ph to me for such a low KH.


My water hardness is very hard here in Lincoln (Jurassic Limestone area) 282ppm, 19.6 Clark, 28.2 French, 16 German and Ph is very steady at 7.62 - 8 with an average of 7.77 however this is artificially lowered (probably by Co2) because it comes in normally about 8.4ph after 24 hours degassing.

Am I missing something? Why is the Ph average in his soft water higher than mine in a hard area?

This is Something Fishy's water report. Not very detailed but........
https://www.southwestwater.co.uk/siteassets/water-quality/2018-wq-reports/zp9-wq-report-2018.pdf
 
The values are likely measured at point of use (out a tap somewhere, either at the beginning of the distribution network or somewhere else along it) and the average pH measured is higher because of the remedial action on the water to make it pipe safe, remedial action is not stated but looking at the report it appears to be phosphate based alkali buffering as the concentration of phosphorous is 70x that of the Iron content (the supplemental information in the table states this to be the case). The sodium content has not been measured so there is no way to know if they also use sodium hydroxide based buffering to further up the pH. From the Defra report where there is mention of excessive pH (in the 9's) it has been found to be localised and due to leachate from concrete pipes in the distribution network, flushing was the remedial action in that case.

🙂
 
Might or might not help but my water is soft and similar in hardness and kh but differs in pH, I don't have knowledge to get into the science behind it but might help as a comparison for those of you that do? If not then ignore

Clarke deg- 3.22
French deg - 4.58
German deg - 2.57
Calcium - 14.76
Magnesium - 2.19
CaCo3 - 45.83
Sodium - 5.1 (min), 5.61 (mean), 6.0 (max)
pH - 6.9 (min), 7.37 (mean), 7.8 (max)

My measured by drop test kH is usually between 1 and 2
 
KH of my main tank is up today to 35ppm now.

I’ve ordered some Potassium Bicarbonate just in case I decide to use it to buffer the KH of my tap or rain water.

I won’t got beyond 1g/25l either.

It surely can’t hurt either way to ensure the water I am using it at least more stable.


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Hi all,
SuperColey1 said:
The water report for Something Fishy's area is very soft but quite puzzling (to me) on Ph.

28 parts per million (so his substrate or hardscape seems to be adding some on top of that) Clark 2º, French 3º, German 2º so it is very very soft water. The Ph though on the report fluctuates from 7.1ph to 9.4ph with an average of 8.42ph. Seems like a high ph to me for such a low PH..........Am I missing something? Why is the Ph average in his soft water higher than mine in a hard area?

This is Something Fishy's water report. Not very detailed but........
https://www.southwestwater.co.uk/siteassets/water-quality/2018-wq-reports/zp9-wq-report-2018.pdf
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It is likely to be sodium hydroxide (Na OH) addition, it is added to raise pH and stop copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and lead (Pb) from pipes going into solution.
X3NiTH said:
The values are likely measured at point of use (out a tap somewhere, either at the beginning of the distribution network or somewhere else along it) and the average pH measured is higher because of the remedial action on the water to make it pipe safe, remedial action is not stated but looking at the report it appears to be phosphate based alkali buffering as the concentration of phosphorous is 70x that of the Iron content (the supplemental information in the table states this to be the case🙂
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The phosphate addition is also to precipitate out any heavy metals.

The technical term is Phosphate Induced Metal Stabilisation <"PIMS"> and the aim is the <“control of plumbosolvency”>.

Cheers Darrel
 
Last edited:
It removes a lot of the variability, adding DI (deionising pod) will completely remove the variability all the way to zero TDS. My water is pretty much identical to yours in conductivity so it's been through similar remediation to make it pipe safe. I use a TMC unit and the RO part takes 35+ish TDS water and drops it to 1TDS, bypassing this TDS through the DI pod drops it to zero (I bypass the DI for a few minutes at the beginning to let the TDS to drop down to 1 because I don't want to wear the resin out unnecessarily).

Once you have water with nothing in it then you can tailor it to exactly how you want it and how you choose to do this is entirely up to you, you can do this conveniently via a commercial product or you can do it yourself with different compounds of elements. If you go the DIY route it can save you quite a penny, there are many different recipes out there to chose from, most use sulphate or chloride based minerals for GH and bicarbonate for KH (much the same as commercial mixes but you get to control the numbers and eliminate sodium as a cheap filler). I am doing it slightly differently with a little more complexity (high accuracy and repeatability, minimal variability) by using carbonates for GH and KH, I'm still adding sulphates and chlorides but only in very small amounts, I get rich low TDS water this way, GH8 KH8 + 1week EI Macro dose up front = TDS 120, (Salty Shrimp to GH6 KH0 = TDS >150 'no ferts').

🙂
 
sciencefiction said:
Is it going up naturally?

How are the fish doing now?
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It is going up yeah pretty oddly.

Tempted to rescale the lot so I know where I’m at.

Yeah naturally just the strongest left I think. No more since I last posted and all still eating. The more I read up on neon tetra disease the more I can see in common with them. I swear there was something going around them.


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Something Fishy said:
Yeah naturally just the strongest left I think. No more since I last posted and all still eating. The more I read up on neon tetra disease the more I can see in common with them. I swear there was something going around them.
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New fish that were previously stressed, weak immune system, unstable tank, it can take a toll on fish. It is all about the water.... I'd expect that when you get your water in order, things will settle. The strongest may/should survive but may or may not last their usual life span. New fish, however, should be fine.

Something Fishy said:
It is going up yeah pretty oddly.
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I think @X3NiTH has it spot on about what's happening in your tank.
 
sciencefiction said:
New fish that were previously stressed, weak immune system, unstable tank, it can take a toll on fish. It is all about the water.... I'd expect that when you get your water in order, things will settle. The strongest may/should survive but may or may not last their usual life span. New fish, however, should be fine.



I think @X3NiTH has it spot on about what's happening in your tank.
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Yeah his post makes perfect sense and I don’t doubt my water is making things unstable.

But there’s definitely a disparity in the last few weeks in how the fish have been and certainly the symptoms from NTD I can see, especially the wasting body’s. Very odd.

I don’t think I’ll be happy until I rescape it now sadly. Annoys me as I liked this bespoke layout but I can’t love it any more. The sump over complicates things too but I may use another method of overflow.

RO is a good shout I think but I’m concerned about the water bill and water wastage from it?


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Something Fishy said:
Yeah his post makes perfect sense and I don’t doubt my water is making things unstable.

But there’s definitely a disparity in the last few weeks in how the fish have been and certainly the symptoms from NTD I can see, especially the wasting body’s. Very odd.

I don’t think I’ll be happy until I rescape it now sadly. Annoys me as I liked this bespoke layout but I can’t love it any more. The sump over complicates things too but I may use another method of overflow.

RO is a good shout I think but I’m concerned about the water bill and water wastage from it?


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So use the rainwater you said you had instead, throw in the usual water conditioner that deal with metal in case there are any metal pins or hooks in your roof setup and the remineralise that. Like DW said above, rain water is what he uses. It is what I used to use to cut 3 parts rain/1 part tap because of my hard tap water when I had Crystal reds.
 
SuperColey1 said:
So use the rainwater you said you had instead, throw in the usual water conditioner that deal with metal in case there are any metal pins or hooks in your roof setup and the remineralise that. Like DW said above, rain water is what he uses. It is what I used to use to cut 3 parts rain/1 part tap because of my hard tap water when I had Crystal reds.
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Which fine but when it doesn’t rain in the summer could be an issue.

I’d need to test it though right and check for KH stability and then filter and ensure it’s not contaminated or full of germs if it’s been sat around for a while now?


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Something Fishy said:
Which fine but when it doesn’t rain in the summer could be an issue.

I’d need to test it though right and check for KH stability and then filter and ensure it’s not contaminated or full of germs if it’s been sat around for a while now?


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DW has several water butts all coming off his roof. I was using 2 when I had Crystal reds. Did nothing other than put the relevant amount of tap conditioner in it and then mixed 3:1 with some tap to reduce my heavy water down. Didn't do any filtering etc. Just used it.
 
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