How Bad Would It Be?

[Bignose]

this forum over the past few months has been geting filled with the old wive's tales (and some new) that people used to throw around and it is not for the better.

Andy, let me tell you this as someone who has been on the forum for a long time now and has always taken the stance that there should be evidence to back up statements rather than just taking someone on their word -- the forum is better than it used to be.

There used to be lots of repetition of the dormant-ich myth, I haven't personally seen it in a while now. There used to be many repititions of the "stunting causes organs to swell up" myth, but when I asked several times for anyone to show proof of that statement -- never got any. (BTW, still open for someone to show proof, if you've got it, let's see it.) That's not to say that stunting doesn't harm the fish, lead to more disease and early death -- I'm not arguing that, I am arguing about nature allowing a fish's organs to grow larger without the skeleton growing larger. As near as I can tell, someone made this up to frighten people into not putting their fish into too small of a tank.

There are still some on here that are really bad in my opinion. The misconceptions about salt still grate on me. The one at hand isn't quite so bad -- the pH shock is a misnomer but it usually isn't so wrong. Water typically falls into patterns: water with high hardness is usually high pH, water with low hardness is usually low pH. So, while someone may be worried about a change in the pH -- even though it is really the change in hardness that is stressful for the fish -- in a lot cases, they go hand-in-hand. It doesn't cover every case -- there is water out there with low hardness and high pH and vice versa. But, I do still think that it is important to point out the best knowledge that we have to date. In the post I linked to above, I have all the citations that show that it is hardness that is the real issue, not pH.

But, all in all, Andy, the forum is better. I'd like to think that I helped that somewhat. And, if you notice, we do have a scientific subforum where some of these issues do get discussed in more depth. But, I personally have noticed that considering the increase in the number of posts that this forum has grown to, the number of times a myth is repeated has gone down. Now, I certainly don't read every thread so I could be missing a significant number, but in terms of the threads I do read, the repetition of myths is significantly less than what it used to be.

 

[Genesis]

Get home.
Get a net.
Put fish in tank.
No deaths.


- my way.

 

[Bignose]

Not getting drawn into an obviously lengthy discussion, but my suggestion on gradual pH increase should be read in context of the entire post and not jumping on an snipped.

I approach fishkeeping on a holistic basis, hence the gradual raise of pH in a quarantine tank - ensuring a. that any diseases are caught early on before introduction into a main tank, b. to make the transition to a new tank with different parameters as stressfree as possible.

I believe that there will always be different thoughts on aquatics and readers should not always take everything for gospel, but take an approach which is in the interest of their fish. Each entitled to his/her own opinion as long as the interest of the fish is placed first.

johanv, I was in no way whatsoever trying to "snipe" at you. I simply wanted to point out that there is no evidence that supports that the pH should only be changed by 0.2 pH units per day, and I cited examples from nature where the pH of natural bodies of water fluctuate 1 or even 2 whole pH units in 24 hours. If that is what you want to do, and it makes you feel better, then great. Do what you want.

But, I didn't want someone to read the thread to think that fish are so sensitive that they cannot handle more than 0.2 pH unit change in 24 hours, because that simply is not true. Fish can survive very large changes of pH in a very short amount of time. If you look in that link I post above, I cited evidence that shows that a fish can change it's internal fluids' pH more than 4 full pH units in one hour, given favorable conditions. There is no physiological reason that 0.2 pH units is a limit in anyway whatsoever. If it helps you psychologically, then, again, by all means do what you want. But, it is not necessary for the health of the fish.

I am sorry if you took that as sniping, because that was never my intention. My intention is to share the knowledge I have learned about fish. And when I see statements that are unsupported by the knowledge we have today, I correct it. It is not meant to be taken personally, but just as a general sharing of knowledge with every person who reads the thread.

p.s. I know I can be a little blunt at times (I can see how the phrase "utter nonsense" could have been viewed as "sniping"), but I hope that you will believe me when I say that it is never my intention for the responses to be personal -- I just called 'em like I sees 'em.

 

[kj23502]

I will stick to what I said earlier. 1Ph is nothing to a fish. I wasn't going to get into hardness because this is not a subject to lambast a newbie with.

LOL....I'm not really a newbie* i meant that usually newbies would ask a ? like I did. But i've never had to do this before! I've been keeping fish since I was in elementary school*(back then, it was w/mom's care of course) and I'm 25 yrs old now!!! I've always had community tanks and now I'm doing african cichlids, so the requirements and all that are quite different. I love it though!!


This is a really good read w/lots of input! I'll click on the *prior topics to read*later. I didn't know that it's mostly hardness that affects them. I just feel like a gigantic sponge and taking it all in!

Thanks, everyone.