Hard water in London Harrow

Dear all

Just lost yet another batch of l-104 fry, prob the 10th batch i lose

Have tried everything on the face of the earth to keep the fry alive,

fry saver, no fry saver, daily water change, no water changes, gravel vac no gravel vac,

even tried using live plants for extra shelter and to help with water chemistry ETC etc etc...fry still die,

I have reached the conclusion that I am not doing anything wrong,

it might just be the london water, I do treat it with Seachem Prime or aquasafe but I think that will not work to soften the water.

I think the fry are not being able to cope with the hardness of the water...

London water is just too bad and hard.

Any thoughts or advise would be much appreciated.

Has anyone got any experience with Britta Cartridges or any such water softener cartridges?

I have been told to use RO water we can buy in the local Maidenhead Aquatics but that is just too high maintenance and costly,
would rather perhaps spend more but have the confort of not having to go to the local every time i need to do a water change...

If so, kindly please advise on aproximate price and make.

Once again thank you all for trying to help.

Kind regards

Joseph

Why not buy yourself an RO unit and plumb it in at home?


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Hi Mol

Thank you for the suggestion,

Can you advise any speciffic brand?

Thank you

I have t got one myself as my water in Manchester has a near-zero KH. But I think there are several quality suppliers - look at some of the Discus specialists for the options. Expect to pay in the region of £100 I think.


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problem with RO is that uses quite a lot of water if you are on a water meter. so worth doing the sums.
might be able to buy suitable water in big containers in lidl or asda etc but read the label for mineral content. britvia filters are better than no filter as will remove some chemicals.
maybe just buy RO /bottled for the fry tank?
i assume you dont have anywhere to collect rain water? friends, parents etc...

Hi Irene

Yes, the Brita filter will surely help, here in London rains quite a lot and when it does huge amounts of water drip from the channels on my roof down to the gutter below, however I have always been skeptical to use it, as I am worried the roof may contain tar and other substances prejudicial to aquatic life, I suppose i could collect a bucket of water and have it tested and then take it from there.

That coupled with the filtered water might do the trick, will keep my fingers crossed, also changing gravel from white coarse to natural fine gravel, this way the food wont sink into it and foul the water.

Regards

Hi all,
I live in a more rural area of the UK, but I've always used rain-water without any disasters since the 1970's.

You can't really test easily for any of the more dangerous substances (pesticide traces etc.), but you can use a sensitive organism as your "Canary". There are a range of organisms used for this sort of bioassay by the water industry and I use Daphnia - Daphnia Bioassay

All you need to do is add some Daphnia to the rain-water and leave them over-night. If the Daphnia are swimming around in the morning, the water is OK.

Our rain-water has a bit of limestone dust in it and I can keep a Daphnia culture in the water butts, but if your water is really soft they don't so well, so you can add a smal amount of limestone to the water butt.

I usually use "Oyster shell Chick grit" as my source of hardness, you can buy it really cheaply for feeding to chickens.

cheers Darrel

if roof is new and is concrete based tiles the rain water will not be good as will contain lime form tiles, but older roof is fine. some people throw away first water from rain after a dry period as this may be more acid, and only use water from end of rainy period, but i have not worried about this too much, after all can test water to make sure ph not too low. its not expensive if have electronic tester rather than keep buying chemical tests. also woth having a TDS meter will help you adjust how much rain water to add to treated tap water as just rain water or ro is too pure and the fish need some minerals in the water. but meters inexpensive on ebay. if not sure put rain water through brtvia filter

Hi Irene

The roof is very old and the tiles are potery,

Will test the water and see, in your opinion what Ph should i keep the tank at for 104's or 002's?

Also, what brand of TDS meter do you recomend.

Thank you in anticipation.

The most expensive one that you can afford....just kidding. I find Pinpoint conductivity meter to be very reliable. I have one for over ten years until I accidently dropped it in the water then the calibration was all wacked and couldn't even hold calibration. I want my money back!!!!

haha thank you, will look into it.

Hi all,
All TDS meters are really conductivity meters.

They are robust and reliable bits of kit and only need occasional calibration (you can buy calibration fluids or make your own from KCl).

You should be able to buy an accurate meter for £50, ideally a low range one (0 - 999 microS or similar) and even cheaper meters won't be far wrong.

cheers Darrel

dw1305 is correct. All TDS are basically a conductivity meters. The manufacturers simply add their own conversion factor to display the TDS reading from the conductivity measurement. Therefore, I only buy conductivity meter and not TDS meter. You will find that the TDS readings will differ between manufacturers as they all have a slightly different build-in conversion factor.

BTW, the conductivity to TDS curve is not linear, so 'cheaper' manufacturer will use linear approximation during certain range of conductivity while others use their own non-linear approximation.

Hi Leisure Man

Thank you for explaining, will look into buying a conductivity meter to test my new water parameters.

This weekend I will have the Brita quell 600 st water softener instaled and will aim to have, the conductivity meter in as well so i can test the water.

Would be happy if just filtered water helped my fry stay alive, if i also have to go and buy a RO system my Mrs, will chop my head off

In any case, they breed every month almost religiously, so I must be doing something right, keeping the fry alive was the problem.

Since I havent got nitrates and nitrites or chlorine, the only thing i can think of that would be killing the fry is the water hardness.

Hopefully the water softener will help with that, will keep my fingers crossed and if that is not the case I will have to buy a RO filter as well.

Thank you and all that contributed to this thread.

Regards

I hate to tell you this, but a water softener just replace the calcium, magnesium, or other minerals with sodium. The resulting 'softened' water will have low GH (general hardness) as this measures the calcium, magnesium ions in the water. However, the KH (carbonate hardness) will remain unchanged since the carbonate ions are still present in the water. The carbonate ions that are 'bonded' with the calcium and magnesium before 'softening', are now 'bonded' with the sodium. The conductivity reading on the water prior to softening will actually measure equal to (or lower than) that of the reading from water after the softener.

The only way to lower KH is to use RO system. Depends on the rejection rating on the RO unit, you will see a significant drop in the conductivity reading before and after the RO unit. If you decide to keep the water softener for the whole house use, just connect the RO unit downstream from the water softener. Softening water will help prolong the water heater, reduce detergent use for washer, eliminate scales buildup on shower, sink, toilet, etc. etc.

Hi

Thank you for your reply,

I bought the Brita Aquaquel 600 st precisely because it does not use sodium and it is meant to lower carbonate hardness, but i am a novice when it comes to understanding the many constituents and water parameters.

I understand you have extensive knowledge on this subject and know much more than i do, would you kindly follow the link and take a look at the specs and advise if this will help in any way or just be a compete waste of money.

I use test strips to measure my water, even though they r not the most accurate, but a reading is better than none, my GH is high, exact specs i can send later for your reference, PH is not so high, looks like it standing between 7.5 & 8 but

speculating will not help at this point, will measure the water to the best of my knowledge and revert.

If its not the water then i will quit trying to breed, tried so many different things and spent so much money and the fry invariably die off just after or during the time they have the egg sack attached.

They do tend to get kicked out a bit early but mostly not so early it should kill them.

http://www.brita.co.uk/medias/sys_brita/8524084209828624.pdf

Regards

some perfectly good meters on ebay under £10 eg,,
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Digital-TDS3-TEMP-PPM-TDS-Meter-Tester-Filter-Pen-Stick-Water-Quality-Purity-UK-/291082472269?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Test_Measurement_Equipment_ET&hash=item43c5de0b4d

aim for ph between 6 and 7 for most plecs .

also ph meters like this just search ebay...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Electric-Pocket-Digital-Ph-Meter-Tester-Hydroponics-Pen-Aquarium-Pool-Water-Test-/121282936157?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Test_Measurement_Equipment_ET&hash=item1c3d06bd5d

Brita carbon canister filter will lower GH, but is not the most economic way to do it as you will have to replace the filter medium often and that can get expensive down the line. L104 is a wood eater, so you will need to provide that for the fry as part of their diet.