PlanetCatfish.com

Title line is a hair short. . . but I think I got the gist into it. . . anyhow. . .

What sort of emergency supplies do you keep on hand? Just preconditioned water? Ph buffers? Actual ph modifiers? Medicines? which ones? Anything a Corykeeper should steer away from?

I ask this as someone who is kicking himself for almost losing 6 pandas to a PH crash. . . wasn't until after the panic was over that I realised I probably could have averted the crash with some Tums. (i'm usually good at improvising too. No baking soda in the house, which was what I was thinking of at the time.)

Fortunately all 6 pandas came through it just fine. . . I just can't move 3 of them back to the tank, as they like their new (temp) tank too much.

why did the PH crash?

I never mess with the PH,I am too scared.

Does husbandry mean things for babys. Baby food, sponges for the filter...hmmm. Or just cory care?

I had peppered cories, they liked sand, and defrosted hikari and sinking food and they liked driftwood and lots of hidey holes. I ordered special medicine for them but i never had to use it. It was Acriflavine neutral powder and quinine sulfate powder.

Obviously this is a case of "whatever you need, you won't actully have" - according to Murphy's Law, that is.

Having a couple of bottles of the most common medications (Ich and "general tonic") is probably a good idea.

If you have really soft water, then having a pH stabilizer in the house would also be useful. Me living in an area were the water is fairly hard, I don't really need to worry - tip in a bucket or two of dechlorinated tap-water, and it's got enough kH to hold it steady for quite some time. Of course, pH stabilizer doesn't have to come in an expensive tub from a LFS - Jools uses shells from oysters that he gets from restaurants (you don't need that many unless you have a REALLY huge set of tanks - one or two per tank, and they last several months or more).

I've never quite understood (or used) the principle of "preconditioned water" - if I use straight tap-water, I just use API Stress Coat to get rid of the chlorine.

Edit: pH crashes when the water is very soft and has lost it's pH buffering capacity, which is measured on the KH (carbonate hardness) - this happens when the acidtiy produced by carbondioxide (from the fish's "breathing" in the water) and ammonia reduction (from the fish "peeing" in the water). The pH can drop quite quickly if there is no buffer left. Baking soda is a good source of KH, if no other KH source is available. Longer explanation here: http://www.koivet.com/koivet/index.php? ... &Itemid=40 (about KOI, but the same principle applies in a tank as it does in a pond - except we rarely have cement in the tank, and many tropical fish actually prefer water that is slightly acidic - they do not like a pH crash tho').

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Mats

oh I see thank, I saved that link. It's like my syno tank I have to add crushed coral sometimes, unk why. Also doing more frequent water changes keeps it up. So I do two 50% a week on their tank.

The crash came about mid water change. My tank is typically ph 7.2, but at the time it had sunk just to 7.0 (which I didn't mind, since I was planning on introducing some GBRs) I did some aggressive substrate vaccuuming on my 55 (I removed appx 20 gallons) and must have stirred up something 'cause the next thing I know all my fish are gasping at the top of the water. I put in replacement water along with a liberal dose of prime, but it got all 5 of my poor yoyos, both my common plecos, and one of my kuhlies. My pandas just turned pale, my other two kuhlies just came out from hiding, all my glolites lived, but it did a real number on the rainbowfish in the tank. (Rainbows like ph no lower than 7.)

I suspect that somehow either there was a serious ammonia buildup under the substrate, or else my gravel vac got contaminated with SOMEthing that caused a reaction. But it was VERY fast, and even though I knew the symptoms I lost about half the tank.

I am wondering if perhaps the Pimafix I'd been using to help with fungus on one of my Praecox rainbows might have had something to do with it.

These days I'm extra anal about my KH. I actually had to mailorder a KH testkit, since I hadn't been able to find one in Anchorage for 4 months.

I am wondering if perhaps the Pimafix I'd been using to help with fungus on one of my Praecox rainbows might have had something to do with it.

In a quick google search...maybe related

Both Melafix and Pimafix are organic compounds. The bacteria in the tank water (not necessarily the ones on the fish) these products don't kill, sometimes use the Melafix and Pimafix as food! This means that when you add these medications to a tank (especially a tank that has not been maintained well or one that hasn't had regular water changes) there is a small chance that a bacterial bloom will ensue and take up dissolved oxygen. This could mean that you could see, under such circumstances, your fish significantly increase their respiratory rate.

I was told an interesting tidbit. . .The above affect seems to be happening quite often in Italy and API hasn't been able to figure out why, yet.

The fish may seem to be desperately trying to get oxygen and, in effect, they are. This will of course be adding a significant stress factor to an already stressed, sick fish. If the aquarist has any doubt or concern about this, perform an oxygen test before and during the treatment for monitoring purposes.

From this
http://www.reefland.com/forum/marine-fi ... -work.html

Birger

What was the pH at the end?

It does not sound like a traditional pH crash, it would be very unusual to have an organic build up high enough to significantly drop the pH. It sounds more like the reported, but rarely confirmed Sulphide (H2S) poisoning... which can form H2SO4 (sulfuric acid). The usual cause is a build up of organics decomposing in an anoxic condition.. ie a deep sand bed.

Psy wrote:What was the pH at the end?

It does not sound like a traditional pH crash, it would be very unusual to have an organic build up high enough to significantly drop the pH. It sounds more like the reported, but rarely confirmed Sulphide (H2S) poisoning... which can form H2SO4 (sulfuric acid). The usual cause is a build up of organics decomposing in an anoxic condition.. ie a deep sand bed.

That was my thought as well. And I expect only little of the H2S turns to acid, most of it will dissipate to the air, with the consequential smell of rotten eggs.

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Mats

MatsP wrote:

Psy wrote:What was the pH at the end?

It does not sound like a traditional pH crash, it would be very unusual to have an organic build up high enough to significantly drop the pH. It sounds more like the reported, but rarely confirmed Sulphide (H2S) poisoning... which can form H2SO4 (sulfuric acid). The usual cause is a build up of organics decomposing in an anoxic condition.. ie a deep sand bed.

That was my thought as well. And I expect only little of the H2S turns to acid, most of it will dissipate to the air, with the consequential smell of rotten eggs.

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Mats

Below my ability to measure. My ph test bottoms out at 6.0, and I am lacking red beet juice.