Just how important is pH and water softness?

[Taratron]

A local source has chameleon whiptails in, and I would love to get some! However he says they need to be in RO water, and I know more bad things happen when you mess with the pH than when you don't. I know with most fish, going from soft to hard water is pretty difficult with acclimation. And tossing in lots of driftwood for tannins won't lower it much.

But the source/seller also has RO for all of his tanks and reconstitutes with minerals for some.

[Bas Pels]

Rain is the same everywhere - very soft and lightly acidic. If it falls on a swamp, or a rinforrest, it will not come into contact with minerals, and remain soft. It can get very acidic.

If it falls on other places, it will contact minerals and harden rather rapidly. However this will take time.

Therefore, fishes from soft, acidic waters weill not need, or have a tolerance for hard water. Fishes from hard water generally have some - but not the fithse fro mthe African riftlakes. These are so big, a little rain will not matter. further I heard some fishes from deserts are also very sensitive fagainst soft water. But these fishes are very rare - but you might find them in your area Arizona.

Now, what does hard watert or soft water?

All animals have approximatgely the same concentration of salts in their cells, around a third of sea water. And that does imply a lot: in sea water the sea will suck water out of their body, in sweet water the body will suck water form the surroundings. In fish this happens especially in the gills, where blood and water come in very good contact.

To withstand this, the fishes have cells in the gills wich pump water (pure water, without salt) to the right direction, permanently. A soft water fish will pump more water out than a hard water fish. The problem is, that these work permanently, and these cells are very hard to swich off, espacially not in soft water fish (which never see hard water) A softwater fish, in hard water, will therefore pump too much water out, and get into problems.

the pH is another matter. Proteins have a long chain, the backbone, with little branches. and these branches can be acidic or basic. That is, these proteins need a certain pH of the surrounding in order to function.

The water pumping cells I mentioned earlier work throuugh proteins, and thuis have an optimum pH. This implies that the pH of the water is someting which should be correct. More or less, that is.

I graduated in chemistry myself so I should be able to mess with the water. Still, I never did it - one needs a lot of place, it takes a lot of time. I do think, however that is you know what you are doing it is possible. But if you don't - better leave the fish where thay are.

Some fish migrate, and migrating fish see more surroundings. As far as I know, whiptails are not amongst them.

[Jools]

I am guessing tap water is pretty much liquid chalk where you are and that collecting rain is, to say the least, ambitious. Your best case is you can slowly acclimate them to neutral pH. With blackwater fishes going directly into your kind of water, RO is pretty much life support and cannot be suddenly removed without fatal consequences. I've managed this migration to neutral pH (and with this genus), but I'd do it over about a month. However, I am blessed with great tapwater for blackwater fishes and seemingly infinite rainwater.

If it were me, I think I'd get the hang of producing and consistently using RO water on something else before attempting these fishes. But many do this, it's not rocket science and, from what I've learned from others, it's more about being consistent than anything else.

HTH,

Jools

[Taratron]

Yes my water here is liquid rock. Sadly the importer of African rift catfish has disappeared or I'd get some more typus cats. I know messing with the pH and hardness is usually more problems and causes more issues than it's worth, so maybe I'll sit these guys out.

edit: are they blackwater or whitewater fish? The catelog says white but maybe that is a mistype.

[Jools]

I had in my mind they were blackwater but I would trust the cat-elog over my memory.

Jools