Re: conductivity= water quality explained

[David Sanchez <barbax2@yahoo.com>]

Understand Jerry I am a really really big fish nerd.
As many of us are. You dont HAVE to do daily 100%
water changes. Many people get by with weekly.  If you
justwant to raise a few fish then your fine again
measure your water. Watch as the DOC's get higher and
thus the Counductivity level goes higher. See how that
value changes you will learn what you need to do as
you feed your fish and you begin to see the
correlation. My point is simple keep it as simple as
you like. Fos some of us nerds we like to replicate
nature and we see the dividends as the fry are strong
and healthy and sexually mature at 3 months. This
makes sense since Apistos live only a year, by many
accounts, in nature. So Jerry if your happy with the
fry you have and their healthy keep doing what your
doing. To me it's a hobby I dont want you to make it
work. However if you want to go deeper and so on then
by all means go all the way. I just dont want you to
think that unless you do 100% dail water changes you
wont have good fish you can but you may have to raise
less. Give them more space. You'll get more runts and
they will grow slowly. I have heard of some foklks
tell me cacatoudies and borelli take 8 months to
sexually mature. I couldn't beleive they were serious.
But thats what happens. It's ok as long as they are
fed well and you do the best you can. 

As far as KH ios concerned it is not the same as
Counductivity. What you need to know about Kh is that
you need a value of 0 KH in order to get very low pH
without the bounce you hear about. Kh is critical for
fish eggs to hatch and fry to survive. More important
then hardness or DH though KH is part of that. To be
practical this is what you need to know about KH. A
low KH gives you a low pH. If you dont have a 0 KH you
wont get many Apisto eggs to hatch period! So KH is
the key factor in determining pH. Low KH tendency for
low pH, high KH tendency for higher pH.

I want to add one last thing about water changes and
TDS shock.
The myth that water changes are bad or shock fish is
explained by the changes in the ionic content of the
water. Going from dirty water to clean water ( DOC's)
I am not much of a proponant of TDS shock though there
are some species of Tetras and Killies that are
sensitive to this from what I have heard from others.
though I have not experienced it. I move Apistos from
watr with a 20 DH and a pH of 8 to water with 0 DH and
pH 4.5 with zero concern.
I have found out that it is the level of DOC's or
iuonic balance of the water that is critical.


Dave





--- JerrCarol@aol.com wrote:
> That was good Dave,
>  even from a layman's view. All I did yesterday was
> mentioned that I used the 
> drip method and now I've been seeing this go for the
> second day. Amazing.
>   Man 100% water changes for fry. I have a hard time
> doing 25-50% changes I 
> leave the water sit in buckets afterwards just to
> make sure there are not fry 
> in there. And many times there are. It's hard not to
> suck them up. And it 
> also hard not to overfeed because I'm kind of
> concerned that they get enough. 
> And the stuff you feed them you can barely see. And
> good ideas about doing 
> these changes or saving the fry from being trashed
> during the water changes.
>                                                     
>        JerryB
> 


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