Never under estimate the power of pH fluctuation and Discus

Hi All,

I am posting this experince in the hopes that it will help others out there keeping Discus, that believe, as many do that using water straight out of the tap at same temp of the tank water, with prime (or any dechloronator) is fine.

I have been doing the above for as long as I have been keeping fish (just over 2 years), with no ill effects, well none obvious in any case... until now.

I did my bi weekly 40-50% water change on the tank where I am raising 6 x TR babies that are now almost 5 months old, and even after having done this before with tap water and not experiencing any issues, this time seemed to be a major learning curve for me. Many thanks to @pHish_man for being so generous with your time and insight to help me with my dillema that ensued.

So this is how it went, I did the water change, all looked clean and well, until the next morning.... when I came to say good morning and feed the babies, they were all dark and huddled in the corner of the tank, I could see that they were in distress and naturally I started stressing out too, not knowing what could be wrong, I also noticed that their fins and parts of their bodies looked almost burnt, a portion of the fins were opague in colour and they looked tattered.

I had added a little salt the night before as I noticed some flashing and thought since it was natural and an acts like an antibiotic it was the best bet. Since this had been done before, and there would not be any fluctuation as there is with pH, it is doubtful that this was the cause.

I then contacted @pHish_man, who then over the next 2 days has assisted me, and taught me a great deal on pH, it is what seemed the obvious cause and so we focussed on this. It appears that is what the problem was, pH shock/burn, I then left the tank and missed the 10% syphon last night, to let things stabalise, and this afternoon,they are all getting progressively better.

I have now started maturing the water in a bucket for water changes (until I have prepared to get a jojo container from builders), with heater and air pump, and will never put water straight from the tap into any of my Discus tanks ever again... as this experience proves, you may get away with it a 100 times over, but all it takes is that 1 time that it goes wrong and you could wipe out your whole tank harming the fish you love. I am fortunate that mine are ok and that it was not worse, but even the way it was, was enough to show me the importance of pH and correctly monitoring it with Discus - I have been told, a good way is with a probe pH meter if you want to be 100% sure.

I sure hope this helps someone out there,

Kind regards,
Candice

Here are some pics of the ill effects on the fish:


The one on the far right was the most affected as you can see... find updated pic below of him/her who is the front one, looking much better this afternoon.

And this is them now:

 

Looks like you have had another close shave. Contrary to what everyone will tell you, you must add some shell grit in your filter compartment, this is a very good buffer against the pH drops. IT DOES NOT INCREASE THE HARDNESS OF THE WATER, because you do do so many partial water changes with discus that the water does not have a chance to increase the hardness. I am adding this last statement just in case some of the Malawi keepers start telling us how they harden up their water.

Aqua, this is also why I will never be without a reliable pH meter ever again, if you want to keep discus, you need to be able to measure pH accurately in soft water and not have this guessing game with pH strips or drop tests.

Kind regards,

Dirk

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi @Dirk,

Thanks for your response.

Yes you are right, was another close shave, and as crappy as I feel about it, I am grateful to be learning as much as I am so I can do my utmost to prevent the negative experiences in the future.

When you say shell grit, is there something specific I need to get? This is the first time I have heard of it, so want to be sure I get the right thing.

Re. the pH meter, which one do you use? I went and bought one today for almost R700, but was advised it was an inaccurate one, its the SAGA pH pen. It does appear erratic, as it does not always give the same reading...

I have been advised to get the probe one (also SAGA make) as it is apparently a lot more accurate. My intention is to go and swap the one I bought for that one tomorrow.

Are there any other electronic test units one can buy that are useful for Discus keeping other than the pH one?

Kind regards,
Candice

 

I have found this particularly true wrt BN's as well.... a slight water change of less than 30% took all of my fry.... (Thank goodness.... the older fry and adults survived the pH change)

 

Don't forget Threadfin rainbows.

 

Hi Candice,

Yes this is a mine field without a certain amount of chemistry/biochemistry background.

The shell grit or shells I am talking about lie around on the beach at Bloubergstrand in huge amounts. Go and collect some of those beach washed shells, blue and white mussel shells, that are at least 2-3 cm in size are ideal. Give them a good wash under the tap and they are ready for use. Make sure there is no oil on the shells and no vrot red bait or some dead mussel meat.

A pen model pH meter has an electrode which simply cannot measure pH accurately in soft water, for this purpose you need a lab style meter with a separate electrode, as expensive as it may be. pH measurement by these electrodes is based on current flow through the water and if there are very few salts in the water as is the case in soft water then the pen held models battle and all they do is that the measurement drifts as you have experienced. Other models that you can consider are the Milwaukee brand that can be obtained from Spraytech.

You could also consider buying a conductivity meter, but this is useful if you have harder water and soften your water with RO say. Then you can use this meter when you to correct the conductivity, which is roughly equivalent to hardness, of the RO water by adding RO salts or just harder water. I have such a meter, but I hardly ever use it here in the Western Cape because our water is definitely soft enough for discus to spawn in successfully, I don't bother with RO.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

@Dirk
my discus tank ph is constantly dropping,and i can not keep up with water changes to keep my ph higher.my ph seems to drop to 4.5 ,after w/c its 5.6,but 3 days later back to 4.5!will the shells keep my Ph stable?

 

Hi Jabula,

Yes the shells will certainly help, but you should be careful because if the pH drops below 4 then this is not at all good for your discus, this is when you then start seeing the fin burn that Candice's fishes have shown. Get yourself some bicarbonate of soda from your supermarket and use this to adjust your pH. Be careful not to add too much when you start, add say a 1/4 teaspoon and then measure your pH after this to see that you do not jump the pH up by more than 1 pH unit in 24 hours and then this should be fine.

If you add enough shells the pH will stabilize, but this is dependent on how much of the shells you add. You will also find that you will need to clean the shells every two weeks at least by taking them out and rubbing them between your hands to stop them being coated with organic compounds.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

acidity dissolves the shells which in turn increases the PH back to 7.
when at 7 the shells don't dissolve at any alarming rate so its great for stability like Dirk mentioned.

 

Hello @Dirk,

Thank you for your reply.

I believe I can also use crushed coral? I think this may be safer than picking up shells at the beach? at least I am sure of not bringing home any nasties on it Do you agree?

I am swapping the pen pH meter for the probe one that Andrew has (is this what you are referring to when you say electrode?), he swears by it...the way I see it is that its a once off cost, and to have an accurate reading, makes it very worthwhile.

As for RO water, I am not even going to go there as you have suggested here and in other posts it is not necessary for Discus keeping and I am being kept really busy studying what I should be doing for them.

I would like to find out about some other things please:

When maturing water, I understood this to be mostly to get the pH to stabalise, well almost 24hrs later, and the pH has not dropped all that much at all, so I have added Discus buffer and it instantly lowers it to a more acceptable 7.5 (as opposed to 9 out of my tap) I used less than the specified dosage as I am testing it out to see how it works and I can always add more to the recommended dosage if need be.

The tank is on around 6.3 now. So I would like to understand, what is the purpose of letting the water mature for so long, when in actual fact its the Discus buffer that has lowered the pH more effectively, and it works fast too?

I would also like to know what a safe difference, in pH between the tank water and replacement water is? Last night on my small 10% water change in the babies tank, the pH in the tank was 5.7 and the mature water was at 6.4 (only after adding Discus buffer), so does this 0.7 difference make a huge difference, or when does it become a no no? I really want to understand it. Then it appears that the actual pH is of less importance and what is of more importance is that it doesn't fluctuate. I understand that, but there must be a lowest safe and highest safe number? please tell me what those numers are to be safe. I will place my focus on not having the pH fluctuate so that part I understand. I also want to ask about what makes the pH drop, I have 2 tanks in the same room, use the same water, products and everything, yet the babies tank drops way more than the bigger Discus's tank does - I will use the crushed coral/shell grit to sort it out, but what causes the actual pH to drop and why is it more in one tank and less in another? Sorry for so many questions... as per your recommendations, I have ordered: The Manual of Fish Health[FONT=&quot] - Everything You Need to Know about Aquarium Fish, Their Environment and Disease Prevention [/FONT][FONT=&quot](Paperback, 2nd) Chris Andrews, Adrian Exell, Neville Carrington[/FONT] and [FONT=&quot] "Discus Health: Selection, Care, Diet, Diseases & Treatments for Discus, Angelfish and Other Cichlids[/FONT][FONT=&quot]"[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Untergasser, Dieter; Hardcover, and then also [/FONT]Schmidt-Fockes Discus Book" Schmidt-Focke, Eduard; Hardcover, [FONT=&quot]so once they arrive and I have some reading material to study, hopefully I won't have to ask as many questions [/FONT]

Thanks a lot!
Candice

 

Correction, I think I am going mad here with all the pH readings I have taken the past 2 days!

The difference of 0.7 was between what the tank was before and after the 10% water change and NOT the difference between mature water change water and tank water... sorry about that.... the mature wc water in the bucket was more like 7.1 which then, once I added the 10% water from the bucket at 7.1 to the tank water at 5.7, then the tank water became 6.4.... I hope this makes sense.

Kind regards,
Candice

 

Hi Candice,

Go and collect shells from your beach, I have been doing so for years (from your beach nogal) and I have no reason to think that I have a lost a fish as a result of it. Why buy coral when you have a beach full of local shells that are just as good? We have the phobia that anything that is imported must be better, but we have excellent local things that are just as good if not better than the imported stuff, enough said.

I am in full agreement that you make an investment in a good pH meter and electrode and then you have a reliable way to measure pH. If you buy discus at the prices that they cost, why save on pH measuring devices which are about the most important tools in their survival, it is a false economy. You do however need to realize that a pH electrode does also eventually degrade and after two to three years you need to replace the electrode but not the pH meter, mine is now 12 years old and going strong.

Maturing water is not about pH stabilization at all, it is about getting rid of chlorine and nothing else. My tap water contains no chlorine because I have the advantage that in Somerset West they treat the water down in the bottom reservoirs in town and then pump it up the hill to where I am via three reserviors. Every time the water is jetted into the reservoir its blows off chlorine and my water is completely without chlorine as a result. I add this water directly into my tanks without any negative consequences.

When you do a water change you can change as much water as you wish as long as you do not introduce chlorine and as long as you do not induce jumps in pH that are larger than 1 pH unit. Discus will survive pH changes of 2 units but this is stressful for the fishes and cannot be advised. This business of not allowing the water to fluctuate in pH value is also nonsense. Fluctuating pH occurs in nature and stimulates discus to spawn so this is not wrong. What is important to remember is that a pH unit change down of 1 unit down means that the acid concentration increases by a factor 10 and a pH unit change of 2 units down means that the acid concentration increases by a factor of 100. That is why I say that a change of more than one unit up or down is too much during one water change.

Why your pH changes differently in your two tanks has to do with the feeding relative to the fish and the water volume. If you feed proteins as you do, then the fishes break down some of the proteins into ammonia which is released across the gills into the water. The ammonia (NH4+ in your acid water) is then broken down to nitrite NO2- to nitrate NO3= in your biological filter. If you look at these formulas then you see that the NH4+ is changed to NO3= which means that the H or H+ or acid is released into the water causing the pH to drop. Thus the amount of feeding influences the pH and the drop in pH. In your baby tank you feed more therefore more pH drop and in your adult tank you feed less and therefore you have less pH drop. It is all very logical chemically but again if you do not have the chemical background this is difficult to understand. Hope my explanation helps you understand all of these complexities and discus really push all of this because it is only when you keep discus that you feed such large amounts of food. The Chris Andrews book explains this all very well and with nice diagrams and it is absolutely essential for you to read this repeatedly and to try to understand this. I enjoy helping folks that are really passionate about understanding this so please do not hesitate to ask again.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thank you @Dirk, your explanations are much appreciated. I will have to go over it again and again, but I am determined to understand all of this fully.

Ok, so a nice walk on the beach tomorrow will be in order.. I thought I'd use the crushed coral as I still have half a bag of it from the past...but some fresh local shells do sound better the way you put it, after all local is lekker.

Now another question (or 4...) - why don't we measure chlorine in the water since it is such an important part of it? Does Prime and the like work instantly as the Discus buffer does or does it take some time to work? Very interesting about the acid concentration and the affect the pH difference has on it, do any of the books I am getting explain this in greater detail, such as a fluctuation of pH up 1 or 2 units as well as down, I find that it fluctuating up is more likely in terms of water changes, considering the tap water pH is so high, however, since it drops substantially as you have explained, when feeding so much as with the grow out tank, it is useful and equally important to understand a unit or 2 down also, or does it work the same way? I still have to learn all about acid concentration.... if none of the books have this info, I will Google it, in fact I will Google it anyway as I have to wait a rather long time to get the books, I ordered from Amazon and Loot and Amazon for instance may only arrive end November... Makes perfect sense about the reason for the babies tank pH dropping a lot more than the other tank.

Kind regards,
Candice

 

Wouldn't a buffer, seachem makes one for discus, iirc 6.8, make your life easier. And you just add the buffer say once a week or once a month for consistency?

 

Hi Popgun,

You are quite right in your recommendation of using a buffer, for young fishes this quite good yes. What these buffers do in the process of buffering the pH is that they harden the water a little. Not excessively, just a little so this is in principle not wrong. When you want to breed discus, then you cannot use this buffer though and that is the reason why I do not use it.

Some of these buffers for discus, and there are other suppliers of these buffers than seachem in SA such as Microbelift (seeing that we are naming brands here) do contain phosphates for their buffering propeties and this can theoretically stimulate algal growth, but then again in a tank in which you are keeping or raising discus such as Candice is doing this is not relevant as there are no plants.

Candice, the shells business certainly works but needs some fine tuning, you need to find out by experimentation how much of the shells to use or not, so you could use these buffers instead. Obviously they cost a lot more than the shells option and another to remember is that you must still use your pH meter to monitor the pH regardless of whether you use these buffers or not, you have to watch the pH all the time in our water here in the Cape Town vicinity to make sure that you do not get those drops all of a sudden, I monitor this on a daily basis.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thanks Dirk. I see, Discus fish sound like "finaky" things

 

Hi @Dirk,

Thanks, I will use the Discus buffer then, since I already bought it, and you use such a little of it, it should go a long way, if I use the recommended dose then its only 1/2 a tsp for my daily water change of 10% (I only use it on new water that has a very high pH out my tap to lower the pH).

I may be wrong, since I have not tried using the Discus buffer to raise pH, but it is my understanding that the buffer will assist when wanting to lower the pH, the shells on the other hand I understand to be helpful to ensure that the pH does not drop considerably for the reasons we have stated above re. the grow out tank and feeding. Shouldn't I then consider using both options? Like I say I have not tried the Discus buffer to raise pH before, only to lower it. It states on the bottle that to up the pH you need to use another product, so instead of buying the other product I can use shells for the same purpose?

Thanks,
Candice

 

Hi Candice

Sorry to hear about the baby's misfortune, it happens if you don't have that very valuable PH meter. saying that I do not have one myself but have learned the hard way but missing a water change on occasion as a matter of fact that is how I lost your baby’s mother she never did recover from the last PH crash I had it the breeding tank that happened but the male pulled threw fine he is as strong as an ox. I am in the proses of saving for one as we speak but I got a way to go as I am looking at one of Milwaukie’s multi lab testers as I am going to be needing it for other applications on the farm in Namibia but its primary function will be in the Discus tank. With regards to upping the PH as @Dirk and I am sure @pHish_man have mentioned the Bicarb is the best and cheapest way to rectify PH up, just remember in small amounts.

Anyway I hope they are doing well now.

Regards

Jason

 

@Aqua did you put a air stone in with the water when maturing it? im probably wrong in my logic but the air also help with the aging of the water... and also the smaller the tank the easier is it to mess up the water parameters(small changes can have huge effects)

 

Hi Jason,

Yes Andrew mentioned the bicarb to me, but I think if I have shells in the canister that do the same thing, then I don't need to add any bicarb.. however it is good to know incase I need to use it

It is very sad that you lost the mother, it must have been very difficult for you... glad the dad made it.

The babies are doing much better, thanks, here is a pic taken now now:



Strange thing I find, is at times some look darker than others, and then suddenly they look fine again, within a matter of minutes really... could just be the light and angle in which I am looking at them, hard to say though... I must actually update the pics thread now, was waiting for them to look better after their ordeal How are yours growing, please post some pics when you get a chance, I would love to see if they are looking similar.

Thanks,
Candice