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Re: pH and soda water.
Hi All,
I'd like to add my two cents worth. John Wubbolt wrote:
>>I don't have this problem when taking fish from lower pH and placing
>>them into a higher pH or harder water, certain species are an exception.
>>For some reason going from low pH to higher pH isn't as harmful as from
>>high pH to low pH. Maybe like Wright said, it's not the pH but the TDS
>>in the water.
Jorgen Scheel in his book " Rivulins of the Old World" states that where he
can keep and breed a species in hard alkaline water he does, but some
species require acid water for various reasons. For this reason many
hobbyists keep two types of water, Acid and Alkaline of the same hardness.
He also states that he has moved fish from pH 5 to pH 8 with no problems.
While I did not go to these extremes, I used to frequently transfer fish
from pH 6 to pH 7.4 and back by just netting them in and out, no
conditioning, and the fish suffered no ill effects. But the TDS must be
close to do this. I also never worry about trying to match the natural
conditions in which the fish is found. I will never have the opportunity to
collect killies in the wild, but I do rainbows. Pseudomugil mellis, the
Honey blue eye, is found in very soft acid water. Should you collect and use
this water, you will kill all your fish. Placed in a plastic bag, in 3 or 4
hours it stinks. But put them in neutral or even slightly alkaline water,
with a touch of salt, and they will live and breed for years in an aquarium.
As others have pointed out, an aquarium is not a natural environment and
cannot be treated as such. A fish stationary in a stream has 100's of
gallons of fresh water passing over it every hour, and we cannot duplicate
that in our tanks.
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Eric Brown Email: sikik at fan_net.au
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