Re: More musing on water change.

["Al Anderson" <killiman at iquest_net>]

Darn it I have to agree with the guy from the left coast again, Wright you
are right again.

---- Original Message -----
From: "Wright Huntley" <jwwiii at pacbell_net>
To: <killietalk at aka_org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 6:48 PM
Subject: More musing on water change.


> There seem to be two opposite schools on how much water to change at any
> one time. Charles uses the toilet flush analogy to argue for as close to
> 100% change as practical. Most medications, books and others on the list
> advocate 25% change at each water change.
>
> I'd like to toss in my US$0.02 on what these mean and why they come about.
>
> For a while, I bred Bettas, both ornaments and wild species. It is
> common practice to do 100% water changes on the small jars used to house
> growing male Bettas, and similar amounts on bigger tanks of growing fry
> or females.
>
> In order to do that, the Betta breeders had gone to chemically-treated
> water, using hypo as the preferred dechlorinator (or the expensive LFS
> dilutions thereof). As the EPA worked down the chain of municipal
> suppliers, requiring the change to chloramine, a couple of the best
> breeders (both held the "Grand Champion" title at the IBC, BTW) missed
> the announcement of the change, and were dismayed when they just wiped
> out their entire fishroom in one day. We're talking thousands of fish
> and many selling at over $100/pr.!
>
> A serious water-department overdose of chloramine (>2.5 ppm in one case)
> combined with the hypo-caused release of ammonium into moderately
> alkaline tap water was enough to kill almost all their fish. [The EPA
> was simultaneously trying to protect folks from lead poisoning by
> forcing water pH to a bit over 8.]
>
> These two incidents happened in the deep south and southern CA at nearly
> the same time. Many, many other similar stories have come to my
> attention, not only with Bettas but with killies and chicklets. Most
> were a bit less disastrous, but the results were close to as bad in many.
>
> The wipeouts were an extreme case that required simultaneous bad factors
> to all be present. The 100% water change was the only one the breeder
> had any control over (barring filters, etc.).
>
> If the normal 1-2ppm of chlorine is present in your tap water, the fish
> will show very little distress when 25% of the water is changed with it
> after it has just stood long enough to reach room temperature and
> outgas. [No dechlor product is needed, but aging with aeration overnight
> completely removes the chlorine.]
>
> Add an old-style dechlor agent (hypo), when there is chloramine at 1
> ppm, and the released ammonia will still be below distress levels in
> most cases, but will cause some stunting and gill-filament clubbing in
> babies. The fish may briefly gasp below the surface to get more oxygen,
> but otherwise seem to recover quickly if only 25% is changed. This is
> *not* good for your fish at all, but also avoids complete disaster.
>
> Here are my conclusions:
>
> 25% water changes are safer if you have chlorine (untreated) but are
> questionable if you have much chloramine. Chemical treatment is always a
> good idea unless your water is known to contain no toxins at all.
>
> 100% changes do the cleansing job best but carry much higher risk of
> catastrophe if your water has changed in ways you don't understand.
>
> In addition to variables in chlorine/chloramine, many districts use
> water from multiple sources, so pH and tds may change on you with little
> notice. Our Palo Alto water, back in the '50s, used to drop from well
> over 300ppm to less than 50 on Mondays as they added SF (Hetch Hetchy)
> water to that from the local wells after weekend-lawn-watering drained
> the local supply.
>
> A 100% water change on Monday could have been a disaster, even though we
> had no chlorine in those days.
>
> If you have good control of your source water (e.g., by correct
> filtration) or are a good chemist, like Charles H., then 100% changes
> are pretty safe.
>
> If you use "Prime," "Amquel," o/e and do 100% changes you are safe from
> chloramine/chlorine, but still must guard against tds shock.
>
> In general, I think sufficiently-frequent (weekly?) 25% water changes
> will remove enough waste products to do the job and still avoid the
> worst of the disaster scenarios. Still use your dechloraminator or
> dechlorinator, as appropriate for your water. No pH or tds variation
> will be a bother at 25% change, where it could be deadly at 100%. Even
> moderate temperature differences (5-10 degrees?) will not bring on a
> Velvet or Ich outbreak at 25%.
>
> Guess I better go find my asbestos suit so Charles can respond. :-)
>
> Wright
>
> --
> Wright Huntley -- 209 521-0557 -- 731 Loletta Ave, Modesto CA 95351
>
> "The right of self-government does not comprehend the government of
others."
>                                  -- Thos. Jefferson --
>
> That's what Independence Day is all about, isn't it? <www.self-gov.org>
>
>
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>

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