Moving fish to significantly softer water

troi · Post by **troi** » 22 Jan 2006, 21:06

There is an aggression problem in my S. decorus hospital tank (see http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 14307).The smaller fish is harassed at feeding time and occasionally at other times.

The easy solution would be to move the little guy to the cory tank until he grows up a bit and regenerates some finage.

The tank the synos and plecs are in have the LFS parameters:

pH @7.5
KH 13 deg dKH
GH 25 deg dGH

The target tank has my home parameters:

pH @7.5
KH 4 deg dKH
GH 13 deg dGH

I lowered the hardness in my older tanks (with fish in them) over the course of a month, but this fish would need to acclimate within 16 hours, preferably less than 12 hrs. Is this possible? In the past, where there was less difference in the chemisty I have just added tank water to floating bag water but never with this much differnce. Would that be safe?

The other possiblities for protecting the small fish for a while are labor intensive.

TIA,
troi

Jackster · Post by **Jackster** » 22 Jan 2006, 23:21

It is my belief that fish can acclimate from higher to lower hardness much easier than
the other way around. I would put the catfish in a bucket with an airstone and some
water from it's original tank. Then slowly add water (by the cupfull) over the coarse of
an hour or two from the tank your going to move it into. Then introduce it into it's new
lower hardness tank and it should be fine.

snowball · Post by **snowball** » 22 Jan 2006, 23:44

From what I gather a ph drop is more damaging than a change in carbonate or general hardness, and the difference in values of those in your tanks are not far apart, so I think it would be fine to move over with a bit of acclimatizing.

Rather than standing there with a cup, you could use a length of airline with a knot in it to drip the new water in.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 23 Jan 2006, 13:44

I would place the fish to be moved in a bucket about half full of water from it's original tank, and an air-line to keep it moving around.

Then use snowball's idea of an air-line to transfer water slowly from the new tank to the bucket. Keep this going for several hours, tipping out the water as the bucket fills up. Ideally, you want to do two or three fill-ups to the top from half bucket over maybe 12 hours.

--
Mats

Jackster · Post by **Jackster** » 23 Jan 2006, 18:42

The problem with the drip method IMO is that you will also need to put a heater in the
bucket if you take 12 hrs to acclimate or the water temp will drop to room temp (70Â°F).
The method I described above is the way I acclimate all my fish. I'm usually going from
7-7.5 PH to 8.3 PH and always to much harder water than the fish have been raised or
shipped in.

A couple of weeks ago I received a small box of 20+ albino Pelvicachromis pulcher fry
that were quite small (0.5"). The water temp had dropped to 63Â° F and some of the fish
were already dead. I also knew that the breeder had raised them in R/O water with very
low hardness. Well they went in a bucket fast (or they all would have died) and I started
adding my water to the bucket pouring in a cupfull every 10 minutes. In about an hour
these fry went from 63Â° F to 78Â° F, up about 1.0 PH, and 3-4x in GH and KH hardness.
In the prior two weeks about 3 more died but the rest are doing well and growing. It was
unfortunate that they got so cold but the post office was at fault.

troi · Post by **troi** » 23 Jan 2006, 20:55

Jackster wrote:The problem with the drip method IMO is that you will also need to put a heater in the
bucket if you take 12 hrs to acclimate or the water temp will drop to room temp (70Â°F).

In my case, the drop would be from 75 deg F to something like 55 deg F. so the drip won't work. Over a few hours, I can put the bucket on a heating pad and watch the temp while i do other things, but over 12 hr. that won't work.

It sounds like the bag in the tank and adding small amounts of new tank water over time as I usually do with small fish will work ok.

BTW, I have raised pH in a hurry many times and never had a problem. I have seen sudden drops in pH be a real problem. I for one do worry aobut sudden large changes in hardness, tho.

Thanks for sharing you experiences.

troi

Kana3 · Post by **Kana3** » 07 Feb 2006, 12:04

Would it be plausible in this situation to make a temporaray partition say, out of clear perspex? Or maybe grab a cheap Hanging Fry Enclosure? It would certainly avoid fuss about transfer (and I assume you'll need to do the operation again in reverse...).

I haven't had the exact same problem, but I've had situations where I've needed to remove a fish temporally, and have no-where to put it. I've often considered having a small Goldfish size tank (12x6x6 ?), and a 15watt heater, maybe an air-pump and airstone.

Stash it all in the cupboard for emergencies. Pull it out. Fill direct from the source tank, plug in, turn on. The time in use dictates wether you need a filter or not, but for a few days, with appropriate water changes (maybe from the source tank?), Bob's your Uncle! That sort of setup here would be say, aus$30. (what's that? Two fish? A tin of Food?)

pleco_breeder · Post by **pleco_breeder** » 07 Feb 2006, 15:45

Hello,

I don't think you have too much to worry about with the shift. A normal acclimation should work just fine. I say this because I've bought more than a few fish from shops which used tap water at 36 dGh and acclimated them into breeding racks with <1 dGh with no problems noticed.

As a matter of preference, the bucket is the better way to go. However, it shouldn't take 12 hours for the acclimation. Most fish can handle a downward shift rather easily. An upward shift is another story.

Larry Vires

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 07 Feb 2006, 16:10

pleco_breeder wrote:Most fish can handle a downward shift rather easily. An upward shift is another story.

This makes sense: in nature, a river may well drop hardness VERY quickly if the rain starts and the water starts flowing downstream. The "upward shift", however is pretty slow in nature, so they would have more time to adjust to this.

--
Mats

Matthias · Post by **Matthias** » 07 Feb 2006, 19:49

Hi @ all!

>Most fish can handle a downward shift rather easily. An upward shift is another story.

Is this really true? Some time ago a biologist told me the direct opposite.
He said, that the medium inside the fish ist full of ions and other dissolved substances and that the fish is continously loosing them to the freshwater. This is due to the lower ion concentration in the surrounding water. If I remember osmosis, this would make sense.
In soft water the fish has to use plenty of his energy to retain its ions. There are some membrane transport mechanisms that help the fish to keep its cells at the right osmolarity and pH.
If a fish is put from hard water into softer water, the fish needs more time to power up the mentioned mechanisms. So in conclusion the shift from soft water
to harder water should -in theory- be more comfortable for the fish.

Can anybody point out an logical error in this? I would appreciate your comments!

I've never done a shift like this, so I can only tell you, what I was told. It is definitely not my intention to put your experience in question, Iâ??m just wondering ...

I will try to get some further informations on the subject.

Matthias

pleco_breeder · Post by **pleco_breeder** » 07 Feb 2006, 22:27

The methodology here is a very big part of what makes the difference between fresh and saltwater fish. Freshwater fish are continuously ridding themselves of excess water to maintain osmotic pressure with their surroundings. Likewise, marine species are fighting against osmotic pressure to maintain enough water to flush metabolites.

It's not about starting up the physiological mechanisms. They're already active. Too hard, or too soft, water can be a major stressor because of this osmotic reaction. In marine species, a downward shift would be lethal within hours, but freshwater fish just do more of what they're doing anyway.

Larry Vires

troi · Post by **troi** » 10 Feb 2006, 19:36

pleco_breeder wrote: a downward shift would be lethal within hours, but freshwater fish just do more of what they're doing anyway.
Larry Vires

Ah, tis as I thought.

As far as the move goes, the whole thing was complicated by ich after I moved the first little syno using the "float the bag and add a bit of water over hours" method. No problem there.

All the fish involved were recently subjected to extremes in stress (the plecs are foundlings discovered under the UGF after nearly two weeks "dry" in total dark in a supposedly empty used tank I bought and the synos were starved and torn to shreds), so the ich was no suprise.

The downside of the 1 gal. keeper is that the sand MUST be washed daily or twice daily or the fish is trapped with whatever pathogens may be lurking.

Live and learn.

Everyone seems to be fine now, the synos have healed and clearly have grown.

Many thanks,
troi