Here a follow up on my last post, about infertile Hypancistrus eggs. I still had difficulty in accepting the answers in that post. It just didn't feel right.. I still felt hopelessly lost. I sent a Pm to Geoff , explaining how I felt and about my worries of the situation. It was getting late and so went to bed. The next morning I found my answer to all my problems in a nice long email, explaining in detail the phenomina: "old tank syndrome". We may all know the "new tank syndrome", a situation in which we experience all kinds of water issue's until the tank stabilizes. But it takes a certain pattern to get to "old tank syndrome". I never mess with my fish. Once in my system, I leave them alone. I never change a winning team, so interior such as caves, wood, slates ect ect all stay the same for years. I never use any kind of water treatment just plain tap water (PH 7,2 and hardness of about 3, 300 microsiemens). And most of all, I keep my fish for long term, that means years. I spawned any thing that came to me in the fish house. So what happened??
As I am a very patiënt person and the situation just slowly changed, I didn't notice anything was going wrong for maybe 2 years. New fish spawned and so I was happy. But my older fish started to spawn less and less. I had an egg issue with my Beginni spawn twice. Now I know why smile-emoticon
My fish are suffering from long term mineral starvation. As my set up no longer gives off any supplements it's taken out of the fresh water. But my water is already very soft and doesn't contain enough calcium. After just a day my hardness and microsiemens drop instead of increase. In long term this means my fish are no longer able to make good, strong and healthy eggs.
As I took the last spawn of my Zombies I now see they are in fact fertile and I have two healthy eggs with embryo's. I did a water change yesterday and added Kusuri clay. The tip from Geoff was to start using Oystershell in my filter to supplement my water with calcium. So I'm looking for a shop that sell's this and add it to my system. I believe this really is the answer to my problem smile-emoticon I know Neil you tried to tell me this but I just didn't understand because we were on different levels to start of with. My water can already be associated with RO water.
To every one experiencing any kind of problem you just don't know how to fix, don't give up. Maybe you feel ashamed to tell about it but please do. You're not alone!!! In my case it took just one person with the same background issue to help me through this. Even if he lives on the other side of the planet smile-emoticon
So for the 10the time, Big thank you to Geoff!!!
Roy: I see that you are in the Netherlands so I don't know if you have a local farmers type store near you. If you do they should sell oyster shell for people that keep hens. I bought a large bag years ago for less than £10 & I am still using it. If you do manage to get some wash it under the running tap before use. It is very dusty.
6 uur ·
Sophie: Thank you for taking the time to write this. One thing to clarify on though, water changes? Were they being done or? Or is it your actual tap water that's the problem?
6 uur ·
David: Oyster shell/grit is normally sold to poultry keepers.
6 uur ·
David: For example :
http://www.ebay.co.uk/.../5KG-OYSTER.../310195452148...
6 uur ·
Roy: That is what I have David Speed
6 uur ·
Jacqueline: Sophie , I don't use RO water. What I'm trying to explain: my tap water is quite soft it is just about 3 KH. When you have a set up that hasn't changed in years (so no change in wood, caves and slates) the natural minerals in these items run out. Fish need minerals such as calcium. But the water fresh from the tap can't replenish the lack of calcium because it is already low on calcium to begin with. So over a longer period you have a chronic calcium deficiency.
6 uur ·
Jacqueline: Having a nuisance of snails makes matters even worse. As the snails use the little calcium to make shells... So the fish are left without.
6 uur ·
Dimitris: i tend to disagree....this does not make sense and unfortunately i don't have time to explain myself in a lot of detail....your water at 3KH contains a lot of minerals AND Calcium....I used to perform 100% RO changes for years and just putting some discus trace elements as a supplement but in very low dosage which just not justify that i was giving "calcium" to the fish and never had any issue with at least "fertilized" eggs on any loricariid,callchthyidae,geophagus,discus that i spawned....your fish should be getting enough calcium by the foods that you are feeding (which is the basic source) and not the water.....I ll try to think Geoffs idea but i do not believe that applies on your case....for sure it is water chemistry issue but i do not believe calcium is your issue...i hope although to be wrong on this and that you have your solution already... anyway if you want to add calcium i suggest you to use liquid calcium supplement as used for reef tanks...
5 uur ·
Barbie: 3 degrees kH is enough to maintain a stable pH of 7.8 in my tanks, as long as I don't skip more than 3 weeks of water changes. A saltwater tank is only 8, isn't it? Now I'm going to be testing my tap water with the reef kit tomorrow . While I do agree that older tanks can slowly "decay" and erode the buffering capacity, I don't think that the driftwood or inert stones (slate) will have made that much difference. Detritus and mulm will be adding consistent organics, but regular water changes are removing them.
That the fish were spawning, but infertile is something I experience here every so often, usually after a dry spell when nothing has spawned. I attribute it to the females not laying eggs that can be fertilized, but my L134 just laid a clutch much the same. 2 eggs did hatch, but too early and I lost the others. Our water sources couldn't get much further from each other, and in my case, I started using straight RO in this tank a month ago to lower the hardness. It is now below 100ppm, with a pH of 6.8.
I realize none of this is solving your issue, but I don't know that your solution won't just cause more of an issue in a system that most fish are spawning readily in.
4 uur ·
Jacqueline: To be honest I don't think I'm strong enough to be able to argue with most of you.. I'm not that well substanciated to prove how I feel this is the solution to my case. I'm also aware this is not affecting a lot of people because most DO change something over the years, such as adding other fish to the group or reorganising a tank set up. You really need to be at the exact same situation and already start of with the soft water. I have seen messurements drop within days, i've also experienced other issue's on a different tank that all can be related to calcium deficiancy. Two years ago I tried to get to the bottom of this for my livingroom tank, asking on a Dutch cichlid forum. They could only acuse me of breeding and selling sick fish and when I got pissed off of being acused of something I'm sure is not the case I just got banned and blocked. So I'm a bit reserved about arguing on internet because you can't see how some one is interpreting the words typed.. Maybe Geoff can join us in this discussion and maybe talk more sense then me
3 uur ·
Neil: You can only try ... But It is IMO.. the problem with organic compounds . Geoff is correct . There is a balance between the way animals use the minerals in water and the water quality ... Good Luck Jacqueline .
3 uur ·
Dimitris: First of all you breed excellent fish.No doubt about that....as for the different opinions expressed here i have to say that all of them seem to be right and wrong at the same time....you are the only one that knows your environment so judge what is written here and act in a very "clean" way without rush in order for you to be able to evaluate the results of each different "solution" you try on your system...
3 uur ·
Torill: Jacqueline Heijmen Bennett-Leaver can i plz show this in one of my groups?
3 uur ·
Sophie: Conway any thoughts?
I can't give any useful input I'm afraid. Above my head here
3 uur ·
Darren: This Thread Is Very Interesting Reading !!
2 uur ·
David: To me this just proves the point that what works for one may not work for another and the primary reason imo is because we all start off with different water. Then different or no substrate, different filtration systems, different water change regimes and the list goes on............
2 uur ·
Geoff: And here I am..... So my KH is 0. The water company uses soda ash, to buffer it for the humans, pH 7.2-7.6, TDS 54ppm. Bio load seems to negate this buffering almost immediately. many of you know that I monitor my water daily (usually) and then I load all the readings from the 50+ tanks into a computer programme so I can print out graphs and stuff to look for correlations around spawning etc. I also load in any observations and actions I take, per tank, because this information is handy. Each tank gets a 60% water change with gravel vacuum 2x per week. In the tanks that are about 1 year old (new glass, substrate, wood, slate, pvc pipe, terracotta pipes) they suddenly lost all there buffering capacity, and I could loose up to 1pH per day. Note that in the "old" tanks I had the same issue when I moved into my new facility with its new water supply straight away (about a year ago). Pleco tanks will always have a residual bio load / organic compound build up, and my situation this is not helped with stocking and feeding levels; but this does accelerate the issue. I'm pleased that feeding Oyster shell to chickens has been mentioned because in my research into oyster shell, i read that oyster shell is 95% calcium and 5% other trace elements, those trace elements have been extracted from the water that the oyster developed its shell in. I mostly refuse to put anything from a bottle into my tanks, so oyster shell is a nice option. In addition Seachem have several different ranges of trace element products which implies that the water requires trace elements of some degree. Now back to the situation at hand. I believe that the natural buffering capacity of the material in our tanks is depleted quicker than we realise, which I have recorded to be true in my tanks. Note that the tanks with alpine schist (a type of stone we get here) last a lot longer before they loose there buffering capacity. Of course I have high bio / organic loads, which does not help and is what Neil is saying. Therefore it is also possible that when the buffering capacity of the contents of the tank fails, it is a fair assumption that the unknown mineral trace elements are also eroded. And this is what I am referring to as "old tank syndrome". Now the replacement water will have trace elements in it, which is true; however where previously the addition of trace elements from the material in the tanks may have been compensating for the loss due to bio load, once the material in the tank has been exhausted then the loss due to bio load now has a noticeable impact to the system as a whole. So I like the oyster shell because if I put in too much I can just remove some. The calcium gives me the buffering that I require and the 5% trace elements must also be being released into the water. If the buffering is at the right level then it is a fair assumption that the other trace elements will be causing no harm, remembering that I have been known to breed the odd fish or two as well Now if we apply this hypothesis to Jacqueline's situation remembering that she has been observing her tanks for years, and as we all know there are a million observations that we subconsciously make, then what she described to me seems to align with my own observations (allbeit over a longer timeframe). If we look at the case of the "dissolving" eggs and also consider other discussions that have been had on different forums etc, specifically relating to issues which cause the hardening of egg shells, then to my mind it is also possible that a depletion of trace elements (perhaps even soluable calcium) in the water, rather than in the fish (which they get from their food), may have an impact on the development of the egg post fertilisation, which causes it to dissolve. Therefore the addition of the oyster shell will assist in the buffering capacity of the whole system and the possible release of some trace elements at the same rate as the buffering capacity. It is a cost effective and natural way to reintroduce some elements that have potentially been depleted over time. Well that's my theory anyways.
1 uur ·
Allan: Great thread this. In Scotland mostly it is very soft water and the p.h can crash dramatically. I tend not to test my water very often, I just don't seem to have time so I usually put pots in various tanks and fill them with coral gravel or sand. I can usually tell with years of experience when the fish are just not looking right and that means water change time. I know some species of fish are happy in a p.h of 4.5 but that really scares me.
1 uur ·
