Fwd: RE: Re: oh no!

["Ed Pon" <edpon@hotmail.com>]

>From: Tom Mroz <tmroz@art-inc.com>
>
>to tell the exact onset.  Also, I have found that many of the males 
>that I have witnessed contracting this disease seem to do so right 
>after spawning. 

Now that Tom mentions it,  I recall that I have lost male pandurinis to 
this disease after spawning.  I was starting to think that I was the 
only one afflicted with this problem.

>  I have seen less of it since I put many of my more 
>tolerant apistos (agasizzi, cacatuoides, pandurini, etc.) on tap >water 
only.  Don't know if this is a water chemistry thing, or a >water 
quality thing.  I tend to do more frequent and larger water changes 
>with only tap  because of my limited RO water supply.

Tom--What type of water were you using when you were seeing this problem 
more frequently.  I am using water from a Culligan water softener unit 
which replaces Sodium ion for calcium (and I guess magnesium) ion.  My 
hardness reads about zero parts per million.  The incoming water supply 
is 120 ppm, so I figure I am not putting that much sodium in the water.  
I wonder if it's the very low hardness reading that may contribute to 
this problem.

In one of the major tropical fish magazines, there was an article in 
their regular Betta column which mentions dropsy in Bettas.  The author 
has been in the hobby a long time and from what I recall of the article, 
may have been one of the people originating the practice of putting salt 
into water when raising bettas.  The salt apparently eases some of the 
metabolic functions of the bettas, so people have been raising bettas 
that have not had to live as strenuous a life.  The author speculated 
that the modern bettas susceptibility to dropsy may be the end result of 
this apparently wide-spread practice.  I'm not sure what this means in 
our current problem, but the mention of dropsy and water chemistry, and 
the fact that I know I have sodium ion in my water causes me to ponder.