Hard Water Woes :(

[catfish4ever]

Dayum! Ive been researching water hardness and its affect on fish, since living in southern England i have Hard Water 16DH ive come too see that many catfish prefer softer water... hence my name i love catfish but it seems like im forever doomed with hard water that they will not thrive as well in
 
Today i lost a barb i heard they prefer soft water, i dont have test kits but i change 30% of water weekly and i saw no visible illnesses, could it have been the hard water?

 

[fluttermoth]

You really should get the water tested; I think all fishkeepers should have their own test kits, tbh.

Until then, you can't rule anything out.

What species, exactly do you have at the moment? A lot of soft water species will tolerate harder water, but not all, so you might need to think about restocking.

What sort of catfish is it you want to have? Bristlenoses don't mind hard water, and nor do a lot of the commoner corydoras species.

 

[catfish4ever]

You really should get the water tested; I think all fishkeepers should have their own test kits, tbh.

Until then, you can't rule anything out.

What species, exactly do you have at the moment? A lot of soft water species will tolerate harder water, but not all, so you might need to think about restocking.

What sort of catfish is it you want to have? Bristlenoses don't mind hard water, and nor do a lot of the commoner corydoras

prefer south american or asian catfish but they like soft water

 

[fluttermoth]

Bristlenoses and corydoras are both South American 

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Don't rule out the current heatwave, some of my tanks are hitting 27C at least (which normally sit at 20-22C), warmer water holds less oxygen. Make sure your tanks are getting lots of surface rippling.
 
What barb species was your loss? As an example, Redline Torpedo Barbs will really struggle in this heat, they are rather oxygen sensitive.

 

[catfish4ever]

Don't rule out the current heatwave, some of my tanks are hitting 27C at least (which normally sit at 20-22C), warmer water holds less oxygen. Make sure your tanks are getting lots of surface rippling.
 
What barb species was your loss? As an example, Redline Torpedo Barbs will really struggle in this heat, they are rather oxygen sensitive.

lost a black ruby barb and green barb my tanks is reading 30 all week

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

30C could well be a factor. I lost two of my Steatocranus over Tues/Weds this week in my Rio240, including one of my ~2.5 year old males on the Tuesday. This tank had a horrid outbreak of HITH disease earlier this year, so I'm going to quarantine the tank for a few weeks just in case disease was to blame, but I have a horrible feeling that low oxygen levels were to blame... No dead fish found today with more rippling!

 

[fluttermoth]

I lost a couple of juvie Endlers this week, for no reason that I can see, so am guessing that was heat/lack of oxygen too.
 
Tough times for us all, it seems

 

[catfish4ever]

its a shame, especially since i cant see my fish everyday

 

[elmo666]

I do understand when we all make reference to the origins of the fish we keep, wether they be hard or soft water species. I'm no expert by any means, but most of our fish have never seen a lake, river, stream etc, they're all captive bred and reared with huge water changes with vastly differing parameters. They are hardier than most of us would believe but changes in water conditions need to be done gradually to allow acclimatization. Now, after many generations of captive does a soft water species remain so, if the breeders water source is neutral or hard? I'm guessing not, but that's only my thought, not based on any fact I know. What I do know is I set my discus tank up with a ph of 6.5, kh of 20 degrees. The first discus introduced settled in great as I knew the owner of the lfs who advised me of his parameters. I had no end of trouble with some I bought on impulse on a day out. They turned black, clamped finned. When I phoned the shop turned out they were being kept at 7.6 with 100 degrees of hardness. Poor sods!! Totally my fault for not checking first. It just backs up the point that knowing if a fish is a "soft" or "hard" water species may not be as important as knowing what they've been raised and, latterly, kept in.

 

[catfish4ever]

I do understand when we all make reference to the origins of the fish we keep, wether they be hard or soft water species. I'm no expert by any means, but most of our fish have never seen a lake, river, stream etc, they're all captive bred and reared with huge water changes with vastly differing parameters. They are hardier than most of us would believe but changes in water conditions need to be done gradually to allow acclimatization. Now, after many generations of captive does a soft water species remain so, if the breeders water source is neutral or hard? I'm guessing not, but that's only my thought, not based on any fact I know. What I do know is I set my discus tank up with a ph of 6.5, kh of 20 degrees. The first discus introduced settled in great as I knew the owner of the lfs who advised me of his parameters. I had no end of trouble with some I bought on impulse on a day out. They turned black, clamped finned. When I phoned the shop turned out they were being kept at 7.6 with 100 degrees of hardness. Poor sods!! Totally my fault for not checking first. It just backs up the point that knowing if a fish is a "soft" or "hard" water species may not be as important as knowing what they've been raised and, latterly, kept in.

 
You have opened my eyes  

 
P What is 100 degrees of hardness in DH?

 

[elmo666]

Its 7. I believe you divide it by 17.85 or something close to that

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

I do understand when we all make reference to the origins of the fish we keep, wether they be hard or soft water species. I'm no expert by any means, but most of our fish have never seen a lake, river, stream etc, they're all captive bred and reared with huge water changes with vastly differing parameters. They are hardier than most of us would believe but changes in water conditions need to be done gradually to allow acclimatization. Now, after many generations of captive does a soft water species remain so, if the breeders water source is neutral or hard? I'm guessing not, but that's only my thought, not based on any fact I know. What I do know is I set my discus tank up with a ph of 6.5, kh of 20 degrees. The first discus introduced settled in great as I knew the owner of the lfs who advised me of his parameters. I had no end of trouble with some I bought on impulse on a day out. They turned black, clamped finned. When I phoned the shop turned out they were being kept at 7.6 with 100 degrees of hardness. Poor sods!! Totally my fault for not checking first. It just backs up the point that knowing if a fish is a "soft" or "hard" water species may not be as important as knowing what they've been raised and, latterly, kept in.

I really do hope you have mistyped in this post between "degrees" of hardness and milligrams per litre!

 

[fluttermoth]

I lost a couple of juvie Endlers this week, for no reason that I can see, so am guessing that was heat/lack of oxygen too.
 
Tough times for us all, it seems

 
I'm just coming back to say (for the sake of completeness!); I didn't lose the Endlers! Well, I did, but they weren't dead; I've just had to hoick them out of the built-in filtration system, where I spotted them swimming around.
 
Stupid livebearers 

 

 

[DrRob]

Oh it's not just livebearers. One of my congo tetras went for a white knuckle ride down the overflow yesterday. Found him in the sump.