There IS something wrong with the local water

[|squee|]

I changed 50% of the water in my 2ft yesterday.

I woke up this morning and found a dead Yamato. I've a feeling there are more bodies among the plants.

What the heck is PUB doing to our water!

[hwchoy]

more chloramine?

[vinz]

If it's that... how much more? I've tripled my anti-chloramine dose and still my filter gets wiped.

So far, by trial and error, I've gone up to 25% water change without fish death. Shrimps are more sensitive, though.

|squee|, try aged water and see if it still happens.

[|squee|]

=/ I emailed PUB requesting for the water quality table... just for the heck of it.

If it's more chloramine.. bad news for me. I only have anti-chlorine. I wonder how the shrimp-keepers are doing... maybe I should start getting Seachem Prime? *sigh*

[Simon]

more metal content?

[K11]

A week ago i top my shrimp tank water with one day overnight aged water and resulted in quite a number of cherrries deaths. Did a 50% water change with longer aged water plus anti-chlorine and anti-chloramine, now the surviving shrimps doing fine.

[PeterGwee]

They don't test the "metal" content that often. Maybe say 4-12 months for different stuff. I'm not sure if your incident was a mere coincidence for had to do with the tap itself. You need to blow things up to get them to notice.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[XnSdVd]

Hmmm.. so, I'm not the only one with strange tap water readings... The water in pasir ris sometimes has a pH of about 8 to 9. I've been using distilled water ever since that incident.

[PeterGwee]

A pH of 7-9 is normal and within the specs of PUB. The pH isn't really an issue for the fish. The sudden change in salt levels (large change) such as that of baking soda will kill them.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[baranne]

I changed 50% of the water in my 2ft yesterday.

I woke up this morning and found a dead Yamato. I've a feeling there are more bodies among the plants.

What the heck is PUB doing to our water!

I also did a 50% change yesterday but nothing happened, things were still fine as it was. Could it be your location?

[Justikanz]

I would follow the old advise of not changing more than 20% of water everytime... So far so good...

The only time I did >50% water change was the time when my over feeding caused my tank's flora and fauna to almost all die out... Did that for 2 days... The remaining shrimps (including the CRS!) pull through... Maybe Jurong's water is different...

Maybe these past days' heavy rains is changing the water chemistry?...

[XnSdVd]

Does the PUB filter metals or just chemicals and soild particles? I can't remember my sec 3 chemistry very well....

[stormhawk]

Terence,

50 % is a pretty massive change. If you did the change slowly and not quickly, the animals should not be too stressed out. I believe they might have been shocked by the sudden water change. A sudden change in water quality can shock fishes and kill them. I add in fresh tap water straight into the tank at a regular interval but I don't replace more than 10 or 20 % each time. In fact I pretty much just topped up water lost via evaporation.

There's nothing wrong with the tap water in my area here in Bukit Batok. Probably they increased the chloramine content in your area? I guess its just a single isolated incident for your case.

If there was a problem with the tap water, we would be pretty sickly by now.

XnSdVd, a pH of 8-9 is pretty common actually. I get pH 7.4 to 7.6 here in the west but I understand the pH fluctuates a little depending on the area's source of water. Some areas rely on water drawn from estuarine reservoirs, while others rely on some other sources like rivers, etc. It was mentioned in the water quality table for SG's tap water.

[stormhawk]

Does the PUB filter metals or just chemicals and soild particles? I can't remember my sec 3 chemistry very well....

They do the standard filtration process for the water and remove alot of the heavy metals in the water, including the usual solids, etc. Of course certain metals will still be present but in quantities acceptable by the WHO standards for safe tap water.

[PeterGwee]

Terence,

50 % is a pretty massive change. If you did the change slowly and not quickly, the animals should not be too stressed out. I believe they might have been shocked by the sudden water change. A sudden change in water quality can shock fishes and kill them. I add in fresh tap water straight into the tank at a regular interval but I don't replace more than 10 or 20 % each time. In fact I pretty much just topped up water lost via evaporation.

I always do large water changes of 80-90% with no issues. I just did one yesterday night and have yet to have issues. Something tells me you are not doing something right or reducing the surface movement down too much. (Low O2 and NH3/NH4 seems to be the culprit. Focus on plant health...try to get loads of pearling with no gasping issues.)

Regards
Peter Gwee

[hwchoy]

I prefer to make water changes later at night when the water is colder. If you have exposed pipes your water can be very hot in the day and that is very bad if you do large changes.

[PeterGwee]

I prefer to make water changes later at night when the water is colder. If you have exposed pipes your water can be very hot in the day and that is very bad if you do large changes.

Early morning seems to be a much better idea since your remove all the O2 buildup from plant production when you do water changes at night. The temperature difference shouldn't be much of an issue really in Singapore.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[hwchoy]

Early morning seems to be a much better idea since your remove all the O2 buildup from plant production when you do water changes at night. The temperature difference shouldn't be much of an issue really in Singapore.

Regards
Peter Gwee

early morning! that's too much to sacrifice, even for my fishes

my house water temperature is very high in the day. this is not uncommon since the water in the roof tank or the pipe gets warmed either by exposure or through the walls. during hot spells it gets uncomfortable to wash my face even!

[|squee|]

I've done the same with Peter... 50% over the years with not much issues. It's only this particular tank that has problems with shrimp

I've changed my fans to be turned on 24/7. Hopefully shrimp health will better. The wierd thing is, plants are bubbling crazyily during the photoperiod.

[PeterGwee]

When did you do the water changes? You don't have surface movement other than from fans? (Depending on what type of fans..some can be too much...causing too much CO2 loss.)

Regards
Peter Gwee