Anne Arundel Folks check your tap water..

[Jefft]

Anne Arundel County residents make sure you check your tap water readings. They base lines have changed.. Heck the rest of you outta check at least once a month as well. When I began keeping I measured my water parameters and from there established what I would need as far as SAFE, LAke Malawi Buffer, salt I would need for my water changes. I had a preset formula I used for each of the various tanks I have in my apartment and never had a single issue. Some of you know at this point I don't have a single colony that is not breeding so I take that as a sign things are pretty good in my tanks ya know?? Well then came the recent happenings which I didn't notice at first and when I did I puzzled for a long time over what was happening.
Clue 1- I had about 15 to 20 metriaclimia elongatus juvies I was about to sell.. When I began looking for them in my grow out tank that number was less than half.
Clue 2- When I actually caught and bagged the Mets, where I thought I had 12 to 15 I now only had 5. I thought it was predation by the larger Hap juvies (Red Fin and Ahili.)
Clue 3- One met in the bag I took to Aquastudent I thought seemed weak when I put it in this was confirmed when Aquastudent informed me it died the day after the transfer.
Clue 4- Another of the mets I sold him died as well.
Clue 5- I yellow lab in the 75 mbuna tank dead
Clue 6- 15 to 20 dead fry and juvies in the filter from the grow out tank discovered when cleaning it during water changes.
Clue 7- dead acei in the 55 out front.
Clue 7 fish in all the tanks acting a little off.
Clue 8- the straw that broke the camels back.. My prize stunner of a red Empress male resting on the bottom with totally off coloration.

So last night I did water changes and measured tap water.. prior to re filling tanks.. BAM.. PH levels right out of the tap are 8.3 where they had always been high 6 to low 7s, considering they were now 8.3 and I had been adding buffer I can only guess how high my ph was. I am guessing my culprit has been gill burn due to "too high a ph level." .. anyway situation remedied and everyone is looking better and colors returning to normal on the red empress.

Long story short yall check your tap water..

 

[jonclark96]

Sorry that you lost some fish, but at least you were able to figure it out without severe losses.

 

[Junelee09]

I lost 2 fronts a blue dolphin syno petrocola 2 red empress and 2 trophious. After a 75% water change ... Now I know why I thought maybe i did something


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[Junelee09]

So what's the safest way to do water changes now... No buffers ??


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[Ading522]

Sorry to hear your loss.. I personally put buffers while refilling after the change..your recent and sad experience has made me wonder if doing that is really a good choice..since my water in Montgomery is something like 7.6 pH, its OK for the small tropicals I keep that my mom likes, but for my rift make community I have to add..maybe checking water parameters while doing the refill should help..I hioe others do not suffer tragic loses due to county water changes..

 

[Tony]

Sorry to hear your loss.. I personally put buffers while refilling after the change..your recent and sad experience has made me wonder if doing that is really a good choice..since my water in Montgomery is something like 7.6 pH, its OK for the small tropicals I keep that my mom likes, but for my rift make community I have to add..

I've bred somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50 species of rift lake cichlids. I fooled around with buffers on my 125 featherfin/Cyp tank and didn't see a difference (they were breeding before I started and no more after I started). Other than that one tank (which has since been torn down), all my fish have ever gotten is a bit of crushed coral substrate mixed in with the sand.

Frequent water changes with dechlorinated water straight from the tap (7.6) does works just fine imho.

 

[dogofwar]

Amen - KIS

Buffer the tank (substrate, rocks, etc.) not the water...

Matt

I've bred somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50 species of rift lake cichlids. I fooled around with buffers on my 125 featherfin/Cyp tank and didn't see a difference (they were breeding before I started and no more after I started). Other than that one tank (which has since been torn down), all my fish have ever gotten is a bit of crushed coral substrate mixed in with the sand.

Frequent water changes with dechlorinated water straight from the tap (7.6) does works just fine imho.

 

[Ading522]

I've bred somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50 species of rift lake cichlids. I fooled around with buffers on my 125 featherfin/Cyp tank and didn't see a difference (they were breeding before I started and no more after I started). Other than that one tank (which has since been torn down), all my fish have ever gotten is a bit of crushed coral substrate mixed in with the sand.

Frequent water changes with dechlorinated water straight from the tap (7.6) does works just fine imho.

Amen - KIS

Buffer the tank (substrate, rocks, etc.) not the water...

Matt

what about for those who like the look of the sand and don't want anything else on it except rocks for the sake of "looks" (one of my pet perks ..LOL) would putting the crushed coral in the canister or HOB filters do the same effect one would achieve by mixing crushed coral in the substrate? for now i have a tray in my 404 dedicated to crushed coral, and have not seen a significant increase in pH..of course i don't think crushed coral alone will get you to the desired pH level you want to, but its been stable so far, and hasn't had decreases..

 

[ezrk]

Buffering higher Ph water will not raise the Ph, that is not how buffers work. Buffers work to keep Ph in a range that is specific to each buffer. When the Ph gets too high they react as an acid to lower the PH and when Ph gets low they act as a base to raise Ph.

That said the type of buffer used and the quantity used determine the "buffering capacity" in your tank and a radical change in the Ph of the water could lead to a change in the how the buffer reacts. If your water was acidic before you could have been using up all the buffering capacity.

It also is possible the the water authority decided to (or accidentally added) something basic to the water. I know a few years back that FFX county water accidentally dumped a huge amount of NH3 into the water - enough that you could smell it coming out of your shower. Had you changed water with that stuff it would have likely been very bad for the fishes.

 

[neut]

I've bred somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50 species of rift lake cichlids. I fooled around with buffers on my 125 featherfin/Cyp tank and didn't see a difference (they were breeding before I started and no more after I started). Other than that one tank (which has since been torn down), all my fish have ever gotten is a bit of crushed coral substrate mixed in with the sand.

Frequent water changes with dechlorinated water straight from the tap (7.6) does works just fine imho.

That's fine if your water is already suitable for rift lake fish, which 7.6 is ime. In fact, for many years I've kept and bred Africans, myself, including Kapampa fronts, at 7.6 pH. The difference is my (well) water from the tap is pH in the mid 6s, which doesn't work just fine for my purposes. So I use baking soda to raise and buffer ph to the mid to upper 7s, have done for many years, have produced and raised thousands of fry, and have had stretches of 5 years or more at times without a sick fish, so this obviously works for me.

On the other hand, where I lived 15 years ago I had high quality (well) water, perfect 7.6 right from the tap and never had to touch it, even raised a beautiful group of discus in the same water.

My water has enough calcium, so the only other thing I add is a bit of epsom salt (magnesium) for Kapampa tank, which observation tells me they like (Lake Tanganyika is relatively high in magnesium). Whether to add anything or what to add depends on where you're starting with your tap water. Whether to keep rift lake fish at 7.6, 8.6, or whatever, and how to get and keep your water there is personal preference and not something I'm inclined to worry or argue about, so that's not my intention here. If there's anything I've learned about fishkeeping over the years it's that there's more than one way to do things and over time I've done things successfully more than one way myself. So what I know is what works for me and that it's a perfectly sound approach.

So what's the safest way to do water changes now... No buffers ??

What or if to add anything is all about where your water is to begin with, which imo is the lesson of the original post. What I don't do is add anything to my tanks blind. After all these years of consistency and routine to the point where so much is second nature-- for example, in my own tanks I can often spot the difference between water that is clear but filters are carrying a lot of gunk and water that is clear and fresh-- I still check and know my pH in conjunction with water changes.

As far as baking soda for raising/buffering pH. I've seen a lot of conflicting notions and opinions, some of them are misinterpretations of what someone read somewhere and/or are simply incorrect.