Re: [Killietalk] carbonates (probably)

[Brian Watters <bwatters at shaw_ca>]

Barry Cooper wrote:

>
> If your water is soft and heavily buffered you probably need to add
> something to it. My routine is to add some Equilibrium, which adds some
> trace minerals and even more buffer capacity.
>

At my new location in Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island, I also have very soft
water which is quite different from what I had in Regina, Saskatchewan. In
Regina, the tap water was hard with a TDS of 280-300 ppm out of the tap.
Even with that hardness I had to add one teaspoon of pickling salt per
gallon of water in order to prevent velvet. The addition of salt brought the
TDS up to over a 1000. My Nothos did very well in that water and, in fact,
so did my East African lampeyes.

Here, on the Island, the water from the tap has a TDS of 20-53 ppm (e.g.
2004 quarterly records), depending on the time of the year. It is alkaline
most of the time (6.7 - 7.9) and Carbonate Hardness makes up about half of
the TDS. When we visited here last May, for the purpose of purchasing a
property, I took back (to Regina) some of the local tap water to experiment
with. Without going into detail, it became obvious that I would have to
treat the water if I was to have any success with Nothos. We moved here in
August and I brought fish with me so I needed to be "up and running"
immediately.

I also use mainly Seachem's "Equilibrium" supplemented by cichlid salts to
bring the TDS up to about 250 ppm and it has worked well. I decided to try
this without the addition of any pickling salt and, interestingly, have so
far not had a single case of velvet, in spite of recently being forced to
defer water changes in some tanks for more than 6 weeks (mainly because of
my trip to Chad). In Regina, that sort of "neglect" would certainly have led
to problems with velvet. One thing I do notice here is that even with the
addition of the chemicals as described above, the buffering capacity of the
water is relatively low and in most of my Notho tanks the pH drops fairly
quickly to slightly acidic. This does not seem to be a serious problem. I
also notice that the growth rate of my Nothos is not as high here as it was
in Regina and I am sure that is a result of the water here not being as
suitable for Nothos, in spite of the treatment.

>
> ....... I might
> add that despite all the adjustments I make, I still don't get as good
> egg production as I used to in Ithaca, NY, where my well produced water
> with about 160 ppm TDS.
>

Egg production of my Nothos seems to be no less than before although I will
need more experience here in order to be sure about that. The lampeyes
produce more eggs so seem to prefer the water here; however, that is not
surprising as the water in their natural habitats in East Africa generally
has a TDS much less than what I was keeping them in in Regina (I used the
same water as for the Nothos simply as a matter of convenience).
________________________________________
Brian Watters
6141 Parkwood Drive
Nanaimo, British Columbia V9T 6A2, Canada
Tel: (250) 760-0564
E-mail: bwatters at shaw_ca

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