Re: SAE Problem

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

Rebecca <r2r at sympatico_ca> wrote:


"It's possible 3 SAEs in a sealed bag for almost an hour produced
enough CO2
to drop the pH in the bag and cause pH shock when they were released
into
your tank. Another possibility is some other water parameter was vastly
different between your tank and the store water, maybe nitrate, since
your
level is 0? Fish can go into shock at a sudden and large change in the
nitrate level.

Many people might not agree with me, but I think extended bag-floating
does
more harm than good, especially for that long in a sealed bag. I feel a
small temperature difference is not damaging to fish, especially if
they go
into warmer water rather than cooler. Many fish in nature live in water
which has noticeably warmer and cooler areas, due to springs or
sun-warmed
shallower water and they move through these without apparent stress.
Also,
you would have to have a very large bag or a very large temperature
difference to require 40 minutes to equalize the temperature.

I hope your fish are okay when you get home. If  you brought a sample
of
your water back to the LFS and compared it with theirs, it might shed
some
light."


A bag needn't be sealed while it is floating, the top can be hung over
the edge of the tank.  If you add a little tank water to the bag every
few minutes or so, you add oxygen and bring the pH, hardness, etc. in
the bag closer to the tank water.  Which do the fish need more, a
gradual acclimation to tank pH, hardness, etc., or more oxygenated
water?  Depends, I guess, on how bad the bag water was to begin
with--and form some LFS, that can be pretty bad.  Of course, if the
water in the bag has become putrid, it's better to get the fish out of
the bag ASAP.

Water transfers heat rather easily, so floating (or hanging) a plastic
bag of water in an aquarium is not a very gradual method of bring the
bag water up to tank temperature.  If you try testing with some quick
response thermometers (e.g., high quality mercury thermometers) you'll
find the temperature change is very rapid.

PH changes are necessarily intolerable or unduly stressful on all fish.
 Some fish, for example, Australian rainbows, that live in lakes with a
pH well above 8 easily undergo rapid and dramatic changes in pH every
time there is a hard rain and a lot of acidic runoff enters the lake in
which they live -- the whole lake doesn't change pH but the fish near
the shores experience changes in excess of one degree, or so reports
the literature.  Other fish, I think otos are an example, do not suffer
rapid pH changes very well.

Does anybody have some evidence regarding SAE's and pH changes?  My own
experience is that they do not seem too intolerant of changes that are
within a degree but they are generally more susceptible to transplant
shock than many other fish.  Once they take to a tank though, they seem
extremely hardy.

Scott H.

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