Ravenswing
Member
It seems that we are exeptional blessed with high electrical conductivity here in my hometown. Usually EC here in Finland is pretty low, 100-200uS but we... We do have (tap)around 600uS, wich is more than in lake Tanganyika as far as I know. Sometimes I feel a bit lonely when landmates talk about breeding sofwater species and their water problems (what problems?? "pH7,0insteadof7,2whatshallIdoOMGmy fisharedying"). If I have understood correctly, at least in London there is quite hard water, isnt it? So maybe Im not that alone?!
When I restarted this hobby here in our new home two years ago, we mainly had soft water species. Have always had them...Elsewhere. Water from the tap is (measured today, fluctuating bit) GH 4, KH2, pH 7,2 but EC... 620uS. As I bought my EC-meter just couple of months ago, I lived before in a dream that our water is so called soft. We have had some problems with some soft water species, I lost some just after introducing then to their new tank but the rest seemed to do just fine. I had a feeling it might something to do with the water since my maintenance routines has always been good. Or thats what I thought. I did 25-50% (50% in EI-tanks) WCs weekly and thought thats all I can. Some fish scratched themselves and still do it, but after buying hard water rainbows for the first time I saw the difference. How well they did from the very beginning! No scratching! That really made me interested in whats going on or whats the meaning of water parameters for fish. I read about the EC-meter and bought it. At first I was quite confused about it but then I found it a pretty nice tool instead of using drop tests.
There is couple of questions twistin in my head: when looking GH, pH and KH-values of our water it is considered as soft but EC indicates something else: the water must be very rich in minerals but wich minerals? I could call the waterworks but the gentelman there is not very helpful. Actually hes quite rude when asking about our municipal water. So what do you think, is it hard or soft? What on earth makes the EC so high? I see it hard since I think soft water has little minerals, hard is rich in minerals regardless what KH/GH-tests show.
How do you manage with really high EC-water? I mean do you have some totally no-no species or have you found out how to manage with them better? Some other tricks? I have for example Honey and Dwar croacking gouramis and Checkboard cichlids (which are my all time favorites!) in Tanganyika water...Abusing them? Nowadays I do large WCs or few smaller in a week, keep the water as clean as possible and spent hours to adapt new fish to their new water because I know they are coming from water of 100-200uS. These methods has been a great succes, nowadays we have not any problems even with these sensitive species either. Well, being honest, nowadays I buy just hard water fish or those soft water species that are known to do fine in our tanks. RO-water is out of question and things are well so this is really not an issue, Id just like to hear how do other hobbyists with high EC in planted tanks (no Malawies or Tanganyikas) are doing or just the same as with low EC? We have lost all our shrimps after weeks or months, I wonder if this has something to do with that high EC? Tried them many times in different tanks with the same result: all dead. Kids are really upset because of this. I guess our EC must have been around 1000uS in some tanks with such a small WCs I used to do earlier. So sorry for fish!
When I restarted this hobby here in our new home two years ago, we mainly had soft water species. Have always had them...Elsewhere. Water from the tap is (measured today, fluctuating bit) GH 4, KH2, pH 7,2 but EC... 620uS. As I bought my EC-meter just couple of months ago, I lived before in a dream that our water is so called soft. We have had some problems with some soft water species, I lost some just after introducing then to their new tank but the rest seemed to do just fine. I had a feeling it might something to do with the water since my maintenance routines has always been good. Or thats what I thought. I did 25-50% (50% in EI-tanks) WCs weekly and thought thats all I can. Some fish scratched themselves and still do it, but after buying hard water rainbows for the first time I saw the difference. How well they did from the very beginning! No scratching! That really made me interested in whats going on or whats the meaning of water parameters for fish. I read about the EC-meter and bought it. At first I was quite confused about it but then I found it a pretty nice tool instead of using drop tests.
There is couple of questions twistin in my head: when looking GH, pH and KH-values of our water it is considered as soft but EC indicates something else: the water must be very rich in minerals but wich minerals? I could call the waterworks but the gentelman there is not very helpful. Actually hes quite rude when asking about our municipal water. So what do you think, is it hard or soft? What on earth makes the EC so high? I see it hard since I think soft water has little minerals, hard is rich in minerals regardless what KH/GH-tests show.
How do you manage with really high EC-water? I mean do you have some totally no-no species or have you found out how to manage with them better? Some other tricks? I have for example Honey and Dwar croacking gouramis and Checkboard cichlids (which are my all time favorites!) in Tanganyika water...Abusing them? Nowadays I do large WCs or few smaller in a week, keep the water as clean as possible and spent hours to adapt new fish to their new water because I know they are coming from water of 100-200uS. These methods has been a great succes, nowadays we have not any problems even with these sensitive species either. Well, being honest, nowadays I buy just hard water fish or those soft water species that are known to do fine in our tanks. RO-water is out of question and things are well so this is really not an issue, Id just like to hear how do other hobbyists with high EC in planted tanks (no Malawies or Tanganyikas) are doing or just the same as with low EC? We have lost all our shrimps after weeks or months, I wonder if this has something to do with that high EC? Tried them many times in different tanks with the same result: all dead. Kids are really upset because of this. I guess our EC must have been around 1000uS in some tanks with such a small WCs I used to do earlier. So sorry for fish!