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Water Changes
Alysoun wrote:
>Which leads me to revisit the question of water changes from the tap... is
>'gas bubble disease' a rare problem, or a common problem? If it happens,
>does the fish death tend to be immediate (in other words, will I know if it
>happens in a tank) or does death result from incremental damage? Is it
>enough of a problem to merit throwing away the Python in favor of ye olde
>buckets?
I wouldn't have tanks if if I had to change water with buckets!!!<g>
You can still use your Python. But particularly in cold weather, it is
better to do smaller changes more often than large ones less often. If you
find that you have a particularly bad problem with it, get one of those
plastic sprayer diffusers used for watering the lawn, and use that to
"sprinkle" the new water into the tank. Unlike chlorine, chloramine and
normal levels of other gasses in the water, the supersaturated gasses come
out of solution quite quickly, which is why they can form damaging bubbles
inside the fish. The more you can aerate the water on the way into the
tank, the closer the water will be to equilibrium with atmospheric gasses.
If, right after you do a water change, you see bubbles forming on the
glass, it's a good sign that the gas level in the water is pretty high. In
severe cases, the fish will look very distressed immediately, although the
exopthalmia is likely to show up a day or two later. But if you get a lot
of bubbles on the glass, I'd be concerned even if the fish don't show
immediate signs of distress. This is a mechanical type of damage to the
tissue, and I think it's very likely that it _could_ be cumulative.
Karen