Raising TDS Using Calcium Carbonate?

[apistomaster]

I know there are areas where rain water can percolate down to the water table quickly in geological terms but it is unusual for water from the same season to do so.
I know a bit about the geology in twotank's area and it doesn't seem likely that the water would reach the water table in the same season it falls. The NE is noted for it's naturally soft water and NYC receives water from reservoirs and the water flows over old granite bed rock in the water shed and the rocks have been leached of most minerals and the rain water flows off it fast so it doesn't have much time to pick up much dissolved minerals. It sounds like your water is from a surface source. That would explain why it is soft to begin with and then became even softer due to more rain than usual.

My town's water comes from one or two of six well which are over 600 feet deep. I call it ancient water because the wells must go through multiple lava flows sandwiched between interbed materials. Water is trapped in some of these interbed materials in between impermeable basalt layers. This is the eastern edge of the Columbia Plateau lava flows which I believe are the largest in North America. The plateau was built up over 60 million of years and perhaps hundreds of intermittent lava floods.

[TwoTankAmin]

I thought I would give a quick rundown of how things stand relative to where this thread began.

Most of the hypan tanks with breeders have been moved into the low 150s ppm range or are close to that level and will be held there. The plan is to maintain that level for about 5-6 weeks. I have reduced feeding to every other day and will change to every 3rd in a while. I will raise the tank temps as well. The goal is to have a big storm come though in July and hit the tanks with tap water changes.

I am running the grow out tanks at the low 120ppms.

Most interesting is I have the 134 tank in the mid 140s and was planning to perhaps run it higher when I had a trapping last night into today. There is now just a male and he wont let me confirm there are or are not eggs. However, there is a gravid fm hanging by the cave. I am not sure if its the same one or not. I assume there was no spawn and it is the same gal and she wants in again. I am anxious to see if and when I get a 7th spawn if the fry will make it beyond barely free swimming at this new TDS level.

Just to reiterate- using a mix of crushed coral in a hot mag to pretreat new water and then adding small amounts of Epsom Salt and Baking Soda to get the TDS to desired levels. Tap has ranged from a low of 58 to a high of 83 ppm today over the past 4+ or so weeks.

[apistomaster]

My L134 fry survive with no losses whether the water has a TDS of 40 ppm or 350 ppm. They seem to normally be hardy fish.

[TwoTankAmin]

Unfortunately, there was no spawn. So this issue will have to wait. However, I discovered very recently released contradens fry while cleaning the breeder tank yesterday. My eyes are too poor to be able to see if they showed any signs of deformity without putting one in a container and using a magnifying glass or camera. However, these fish were spawned right about when I began raising the TDS in that tank. I had added bags of crushed coral to a number of tanks while waiting for the TDS meter to come and prior to starting this thread. I am not sure what the levels were when the spawn occurred, but by May 15 they had been raised to 114/115 ppm level and yesterday they were being held in the low 130s.

[TwoTankAmin]

I broke down the contradens tank yesterday to move fry over to the growout tank. I was only able to catch 3 tiny recently free swimming fry. I am not sure if any more managed to hide in the wood that was pulled and parked in the holding bin during the fry hunt.

I was able to get all 3 into a specimen box and check them out using a magnifying glass and all 3 had no deformed fins. I returned them to the breeder tank and removed the other assorted fry to the grow tank. I realize that 3 fry are way too few to determine if there may or may not be an issue still, but at least its a good start.

[apistomaster]

Maybe things will get back to normal soon?

I have 7 young adult F1 H. contradens in with my F1 Nhamunda Blue Discus. Recently I removed four large and obnoxious BN plecos from that tank to give both the discus and H. contradens a chance to spawn. I am hoping I can catch an H. contradens spawn just in time to avoid letting the fry out of the cave and becoming Discus snacks. I mostly want to have them as pretty bottom feeders so I am not going for large numbers. I thought mine grew awfully slowly but I don't know what is normal for H. contradens. I just know that despite their extreme shyness, I like how pretty they are.

[TwoTankAmin]

Mine grow very slowly. They remind me of zebras in that respect.

The real test will come in July if things remain close to the plan. I assume they won't because they almost never do.

[apistomaster]

Then the slow growth rates I experienced with the 1 inch F1 H. contradens I have was normal. If I had to compare them to another Hypancistrus species I would have compared them to the slow growth of H. zebra. They are also at least as shy if not even more so. Imagine how expensive they would be if they were a Brazilian species. Their good looks and small size would make them very special.
But it is fortunate that they come from the Orinoco drainage and they are easy to get. Wild adults sell for as little as $20 and the tank raised juvies of about one inch go for about $10 each. I got mine in a trade several years ago at only $8.00 each. They are one of the fish I want to breed just for the fun of the accomplishment. There are many pretty species which have low commercial value but are very personally rewarding to breed. Many relatively commonly imported and inexpensive fish species are very challenging to breed. I am trying to breed some wild Betta coccina to learn enough to try another pretty close but much rarer relative, Betta burigdala.
I would like to try and succeed at breeding either one of the pretty Coral Red Pencilfish, Nannostomus mortenthaleri or Nannostomus rubrocaudatus. I think it would be a good idea to first attempt to breed the much less expensive but still very pretty, Three Lined Pencilfish, Nannostomus trifasciatus before tackling either of their expensive relatives.
I have pretty eclectic tastes when it comes to which fish interest me.

[TwoTankAmin]

I wanted to update the progress I have made to date. As metioned above the few contradens fry had no deformities. On Tuesday I discovered I had 5 males caved in my F1 tank and one had a fm trapped. I was supposed to be raising the tds the final few points that day with the plan to be starting the rainy season sometime after mid July.

This week once again delivered torrential rains and I am sure the fish were effected. I felt I had 4 choices. 1. Do nothing. 2.Do the planned wc and tds raising. 3. Implement the rainy season right then and there, 4. Do the maint. and wc and hold the tds unchanged. I opted for #4 which proved to be a mistake. The upshot was the males left their caves and one tried to muscle in with the couple which ended that tryst. However, I am very encouraged.

Yesterday, I had 2 trappings in the Pekoltia compta tank. One resulted in a spawn but the second did not. I am off for a long weekend today and when I come back I hope that the spawn has not been eaten or evicted. if not this may be the second chance to see if my original reasons for posting this thread are borne out or if the advice and thoughts others contributed and which I have decided to mostly ignore, prove to have been the better way to go.

Returned home to find the eggs were gone- oh well at least I have a perfect record with these guys- 0 for 7.

[TwoTankAmin]

This past week I began rainy season on the F1 H zebra, the Pekoltia compta, the H contradens and the Glasser 173b tanks. I am seeing some of the fish in the first 3 tanks acting a bit spawnerish and not much in the 173b tank- they may still be too young.

I will post again if there are any spawns.

On another note I am setting up for another group of wild altums, this time newly arrived imports. I have purchased a UV unit and also gave in a got a 3 stage portable RO/DI unit. There is simply no way to get recently imported altums on not have this equipment.

[TwoTankAmin]

A belated update to this thread.

1. Have gotten several contradens spawns. Have seen no indications of deformities of any sort.

2. Got 10th spawn from P. comptas. Decided to move cave and dad and eggs to a newly setup-for-this-purpose 10 gal tank. The next day found dad dead and eggs mostly turning white. Rescued the eggs- got 3 wigglers- ended up with one free swimmer which I still have in the trap. It is the first fry from 10 spawns to make it beyond 1st day free swimming.

3. Got a 2nd P. compta spawn this past week. So far so good.

4. Zebras acting spawnerish, but nothing more.

5. "L173b" have been acting a bit spawnerish. I think they are right on the edge of being mature enough.

6. L450s survived the recent heater failure and tank boiling. 105F- killed two lovely large discus, a small school of rummy nose, but the plecos managed to survive. Dang Hypans are tough.

7. 18 Rio Atabapo Altums will be arriving here next Wednesday. A few weeks ago they were still in that river. This may be the most difficult thing I have attempted with fish to date.


As I suspected when I began this thread and throughout most of the active discussion,there is nothing in my tap water harmful to fish in terms of chemicals or toxins. I have also seen a constant relationship between the arrival of lots of rain and TDS dropping from from their now normal 83ppm down to as low as 58 ppm. After the recent hurricane and then the tropical storm, I had drops under 60ppm.

I still believe the cause of some of the issues I was having was exactly what I suspected- a deficiency in calcium carbonate or some other form of calcium. I think my assessment of why was reasonable as well, The water table turnover rate is much higher than ever in the area and the water repleneshing it is from rain. Because the water spends less time in contact with the rocks in the water table, the fewer minerals it can leach out.

[apistomaster]

Sorry to hear one breeding male P.compta died/ I retired all my wild breeders since they were the only ones that failed to spawn after many reliable productive years. None of my originals have died but I am estimating that they have reach ten to eleven years old and are just at the end of their breeding lives/ They have made outstanding additions to my 75 gal and 125 gal display tanks where they come out to eat so at least I still enjoy them.
I have F1 breeders now from many different combinations of wild parents. Some females have bred at as little as 24 months but 36 seems more like the time when they come on strong. My first F1 broods were all small compared to my old wild breeders. I got about 15 fry per spawn instead of 25 average for most of my old wilds although I did have one brood which resulted in 37 fry(from a wild pair).
I am breeding my F1's in tap water with a pH of 7.4. The TDS was lower this summer running between 155 to 240 ppm. I used to use much softer water on my wild fish but I don't think it matters as much to the Tank raised generations within reason. I had one ejected brood which I just left in the tank and without any special care I got six or so fry anyway.
I now have 3 40 gallon breeder tanks set up with about 20 breeders in each.
I figure I don't have to save every single fry as these are young breeders with lots of mileage left in them.

It sure does sound like your surface water quickly enters the water table and certainly any reservoirs that may be within your watershed very quickly.
I still don't think low Calcium carbonate is much of an issue with regard to reproduction. There sure isn't much in the measurements I have seen for the Rio Tapajos drainage. It's buffering capacity is important in an aquarium to keep the pH stable. If the KH is 3 or 4 then is easy to keep the pH stable given what I am sure is your normal water changing regime. Given the distasters that hit your area I imagine they are using high chlorine levels. May not be a problem if you have your own well. I know the chlorine goes up in my area as the tap water from the mains is about 73*F due to the generally high summer temperatures.
At very low KH I worry most about a pH crash.
I have gone the other way with some black water Tetras and small Red wild Betta species where I do not worry if the pH falls to and stays around 3.5 but that is pretty low for most plecos although I kept a nice group of about 20 Parotocinclus cf. eppelyi with Poeciliocharax weitzmani for 2 years in such water. They thrived until the power head died. The P. weitzmani were fine but the Parotos couldn't handle the abrupt change.

[TwoTankAmin]

This is indeed a very old thread. But I like to see such threads come full circle. In the end I used the crushed coral, Epsom and a small pinch of baking soda to raise the TDS. I never got more deformed contradens and I just got a bunch of free swiming fry from them. I never managed to get more than a single a P. compta fry beyond one day free swimming. That one made it to adulthood.

I finally got fed up with the comptas and sold them in the last 6 months.

Today I have spawns from all my Hypans. The L236 which came from Eric B. are now spawning the way the zebras did in the early years. Over the past 5 days I have seen new free swimmers from the 173B, 236, 450s and contradens. Only my old zebras spawn now and then as opposed to regularly. And I have still been unable to get F2 zebras.

I did not add any sort of water filter to the house and I now have an ro/di unit so I do my rainy and dry with that. The only thing I use the crushed coral for is in tanks where I have shrimp or snails into which I sprinkle some coral every now and then. I also keep a bag of it in my small biofarm to provide carbonates for the nitrifyers.

And to all those in this thread who helped educate me, THANKS! I should have posted that a long time ago.

[Orinocensis1]

This is a great thread and I'm glad you guys all talked about this subject of TDS and experimenting with it. I had one question and forgive me if it was said already, I just skimmed through this thread didn't get the time to read all of it, but what is the TDS like in the Amazon for dry season and rainy season? Also how long is it recommended to maintain dry season parameters before starting rainy season? I have had 3 L46 spawns but not consistently. I just recently got breeding groups of L262, L260, and a pair of L174, I want to learn more about dry and rainy season parameters and try my hardest to spawn them! Thanks in advance!

[plecoboy]

Has anyone added holey rock to a tank? I'm looking to add calcium to the tank.

[apistomaster]

This is a great thread and I'm glad you guys all talked about this subject of TDS and experimenting with it. I had one question and forgive me if it was said already, I just skimmed through this thread didn't get the time to read all of it, but what is the TDS like in the Amazon for dry season and rainy season? Also how long is it recommended to maintain dry season parameters before starting rainy season? I have had 3 L46 spawns but not consistently. I just recently got breeding groups of L262, L260, and a pair of L174, I want to learn more about dry and rainy season parameters and try my hardest to spawn them! Thanks in advance!

Plecos don't breed the year around in the wild so why should they breed much differently in captivity. IME, the vast majority of pleco species, except common bushy nose, breed intermittently or even seasonally in captivity.
I long ago discarded simulating seasons in exchange for large, frequent changes and a diet which includes some live black worms along with frozen blood worms and earthworm sticks. Water chemistry, barring extremely hard water, hasn't been as important to breeding success as water quality.

[TwoTankAmin]

Larry- my zebras had their own pattern for when they bred and when they paused. In the wild the seasonality is usually pretty steady, dry and rainy seasons occur at pretty regular intervals each year. These are not present in our tanks. What I discovered is they developed their own on and off cycles which spanned more like 13 - 13.5 months they spawned for longer than they rested as well. they would spawn for about 8.5 or so months and then stop for about 4.5 which added up to a 13- 13.5 month cycled. this went on for a bit over 3 years and then they slowed the spawning. Now I get more spotty spawns as the fish are now in their early teens. In tanks we do not mirror the effects of the dry and rainy seasons all that much unless we actively work to do so.

However, that off schedule routine meant that the times of the calender year they would go and stop changed every year. Kind of how the lunar calender affects in what months holidays fall on our 365 days/year calender.

My L236 have been spawning for a number of months now going back to late last year. the other Hypans started on their own schedules and some are still in gear while the 236 appear to have stopped. At least last weekend was the first maint. I did with no dads on eggs/fry in many months. Oops- I just double checked and there is a trapping in progress, so I spoke too soon. Looks like it was just a short break not a full stop.

The other thing I have noticed with Hypans is they seem to spawn like rabbits the first few years and after that they slow down. Its like the old tri-weekly theory about married couples. At first you do it tri-weekly, then, after a number of years, you try weekly and finally, as you get old, you try weakly.

[apistomaster]

TwoTankAmin,
Good explanation of the variables which are probably the most important factors affecting Hypancistrus spawning frequencies in captivity.