does TDS monitor help?

Hi, just wondered if any of you sucessful breeders monitor your tds?

Some say it makes a big difference to some types of fish, especially L134 who like a very low tds to breed.

Would be good to gather some info to help other breeders and would-be breeders.

My breeding L270 are at tds about 250 ish.

I am trying to breed L134 so have now started lowering their tds as one new member has kindly suggested to me.

what do you do?

I find a TDS meter very useful for the control of my RO/HMA mix. If I am trying to spawn something for the first time then I keep them at a TDS of 250ish for a month and then start several water changes over a few days to reduce it down to 100-120ish. Normally with Hypans (and IF they are ready) I find this enough to set them off.
I did the same for the L134 also but failed on the first few attempts. On the 3rd attempt I had almost resigned to the fact I wasnt going to spawn them. This time I left them for 8 weeks or so without any real w/cs just topping them up due to evaporation by week 8 the TDS was over 400 the water was really manky, Temp was upto 84c and hardly any flow of water. I turned the heater off before I went to work so the temp would drop a few degrees so could do my w/cs in the evening. I started with 40% w/c tds of 200 to avoid a big change in parameters. The new water was really cold and dropped the temp to almost 75c. Over the next 3 days I reduced the tds of the new water each time I did a w/c. I hadnt seen much action in the tank so I added a powerhead to push flow across the cave, The following day I had a trapping but it was well over 2 weeks before the female left her eggs. After that it seemed to kick off others in the colony and continued for 3 months or so with just regular w/cs.

Goodluck Irene, L134 can be a pain in the butt to get going

That's great info, Gee, thanks for that!

I'm with Irene, I've not had much success in breeding L134s, even with playing with the TDS. I've considered following the rainy/dry season Aquarticle, even though it seems quite fussy. I'll give your way a try.

Irene, I do have a TDS meter and it's become very helpful. Not only do I check the TDS of my DI water to confirm that the column isn't spent (once it is, the water coming out can be double the TDS of my tap water!), but it's a good quick check on tank parameters.

I've also found that low TDS is necessary for the health of new fry as well as success in hatching and rearing cory fry. A TDS around 100ppm is ideal for young fry, so I do daily WCs to keep their water in the 90-110ppm range. My tap water is about 150ppm and this is too high for young fry to survive in.

Good luck with your L134s!

N2Biomes said:

My tap water is about 150ppm and this is too high for young fry to survive in.

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thats interesting to know, and id like to hear if anyone else has any personal experiance with regards to raising fry in different levels of TDS. i dont breed corys myself but have several breeding groups of plecs and have hundreds of fry across my 6 tanks. my tds levels are usually around 300ppm unless i use RO water to try to induce a spawn and i very rarely loose any fry

High TDS and fry death

Hi all,
It probably depends to some degree what is causing your high conductivity (TDS) as to how damaging it is to your fry.

I don't live far from St24rsap, and I know that nearly all the dissolved salts in our water are calcium carbonate, it's aquifer water and is actually quite good quality and doesn't need much treatment, it's just very hard.

You could have drinkable tap water with a lower conductivity which could contain all sorts of pollutants (nitrates, phosphates, sodium, chlorides) etc.

cheers Darrel

A low tds usually means you have soft water, which will have less buffering in it, and soft water with less buffering can have ph swings in smaller tanks and also heavily stocked tanks (even with weekly water changes), which will be stressfull to fry, having a low tds will not affect fry, it is more an indicator of how hard your water is.

My tap water has a tds of around 56, a ph of 7.6, and a kh of 1 & gh of 1, though it is full of phosphate (i think the water company uses phosphate to buffer the water for the pipes), even after storing and airiating the tap water, the ph is still around 7.6, but if i check my tanks before water changes and the day after waterchanges, the ph is always around 7.
I clean poo out of my tanks each day and then top them up, which helps replenish the kh, but in fry growout tanks i find it better to do daily water changes because of the higher bio load in such tanks.
It is the low kh from soft water which will cause promblems in my tanks if i don't keep on top of it, not the tds.

It would be a lot less work if i had harder water, as it would be more stable, but the soft water is great for breeding.

wow tds 56!.
my tap water is 350ppm, - I usually do w/c with approx half treated tap and half Ro.
the tanks tend to be around 200 -250.
the hypan breeding tanks I add more Ro so nearer 180-200. but I will try dropping lower to 100 -ish. but I know I will have to watch the PH like a hawk or it can suddenly drop without the natural buffer in it.

the only testing i did when mine bred was the ph and that was 7.0
just keep up daily w/cs [10ltrs on a 100ltr tank]

I had my first trapping with my L134s after using Flubenol 15 over a 3 week period. I was doing a weekly waterchange of about 30% before dosing with Flubenol again each week.
This was a year and a half ago and the female spent a month deciding which of my 3 males she wanted to be with, but it came to nothing. About 6 months ago I had another trapping for a few days with no success either.
Over the last month, I've dosed with the Flubenol again over a 3 week period followed by large 20 degree tap water changes. The tank was a bit smelly the other night, so I stripped it and cleaned all the trapped food and poops from between the slate and wood, followed by another large 20 degree waterchange.
I had a look at them this morning and I have a trapping again. :woohoo:

Now for my question. Should I start doing small daily waterchanges? I didn't do this the other times as I didn't want to disturb them.

PS. The flubenol seems to have done the trick and wiped out a small unwanted snail colony as well! So it could be a case of 2 birds with the one stone.

Scrapman53 said:

I had my first trapping with my L134s after using Flubenol 15 over a 3 week period. I was doing a weekly waterchange of about 30% before dosing with Flubenol again each week.
This was a year and a half ago and the female spent a month deciding which of my 3 males she wanted to be with, but it came to nothing. About 6 months ago I had another trapping for a few days with no success either.
Over the last month, I've dosed with the Flubenol again over a 3 week period followed by large 20 degree tap water changes. The tank was a bit smelly the other night, so I stripped it and cleaned all the trapped food and poops from between the slate and wood, followed by another large 20 degree waterchange.
I had a look at them this morning and I have a trapping again. :woohoo:

Now for my question. Should I start doing small daily waterchanges? I didn't do this the other times as I didn't want to disturb them.

PS. The flubenol seems to have done the trick and wiped out a small unwanted snail colony as well! So it could be a case of 2 birds with the one stone.

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I would reply but I cant stop staring at your wobbly bit. Weird:woohoo:

I think the key to spawning is not the exact science of TDS but that there has to be a major change in water parameters. By adding the flubenol and treating for while and then having a big clean out gravel vac etc the change in water parameter would have been quite substantial. This would indicate to the fish a change in season and then bobs your uncle

thegeenius

thegeeman said:

I would reply but I cant stop staring at your wobbly bit. Weird:woohoo:



thegeenius

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That's my purple throbber! But it's going a bit green at the other end.

Pete's soft, but alkaline water

Hi all,
Pete your right, the water company have added ortho-phosphate ("plumbosolvency") and an alkaline compound to your naturally soft and probably originally very good quality water, this is to stop it leaching lead (Pb) from old pipes, and to comply with much tighter guidelines on lead content in drinking water.

I've recently found that our local water company adds ortho-phosphate to our supply, even though it is entirely saturated with calcium carbonate, and all our pipes and water tanks are furred up with a thick layer of scale.

cheers Darrel

Water companys = BARST*AREDS
money money money

Hi all,
I'd agree with Bob (macvsog) on this one, it's a win win situation for the water companies.
They have been told to do it by the regulator
(DWI) <http://www.dwi.gov.uk/regs/infolett/2001/info0301.htm>),
they can claim the money back of the public, and if there is still too much lead in the water, the DWI gives them a grant to replace the old lead water pipes.

Plumbosolvency works by forming the "highly insoluble mineral lead chloropyromorphite, Pb5(PO4)3Cl by simultaneous oxidation and precipitation."
the problem is that they are always going to add an excess of phosphates and that is going to end up in your tank water, unless you remove it. Pete is now in the situation where a good quality water supply for Plecs is now less good, and he needs an R.O. unit etc.

I'm lucky in living in a rural area with a reasonably high rainfall, because I don't keep many tanks I can use rainwater for my water changes, it might not be perfect, but I can't use our tapwater.

cheers Darrel

thanks

Plumbosolvency is a new one on me. I know they add a lot of floride stuff and chloramide etc, and I read norfolk water has some lead in it.

is this stuff removed by standard water conditioners??

Hi all,
Not sure Irene, I don't use them. I believe they chelate (bind) rather than remove compounds or ions from solution. It would depend on what's present (probably EDTA).

Have a look here:
http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/rev-cond.htm

"Orthophosphate" is the soluble form of phosphate, so you could remove it with a phosphate removing resin ("API Phos-Zorb"), I'm not sure whether the extra phosphorus added would make any difference to the tap water we have in S. UK as they tend to have fairly high levels of phosphate in them already (from optical brighteners in washing powder and agricultural fertilisers).

Plants will also remove some, although they need much less P(hosphorus) than K (potassium) or N(itrogen). In fact if you grow plans hydroponically one problem is keeping the P in solution, as soon as the pH rise above 7, and free carbonates are present, it is converted to calcium phosphate, which is largely insoluble.

R.O., de-ionized or distilled is the only way to remove all the "pollutants" from water.

cheers Darrel

dw1305 said:

"Orthophosphate" is the soluble form of phosphate, so you could remove it with a phosphate removing resin ("API Phos-Zorb"), I'm not sure whether the extra phosphorus added would make any difference to the tap water we have in S. UK as they tend to have fairly high levels of phosphate in them already (from optical brighteners in washing powder and agricultural fertilisers).

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Your stressing me about my water now mate. Any chance of you testing my water ehen we meet up?. I could always arrange a sample

Cheers

thegeeman

Hi all,
Graham, I'll borrow the kit from my lab., pH and conductivity are fairly easy,
and the conductivity is a good general measure, if it is a low reading (below about 200/300 microS.,) your water is almost certainly fine. (although it doesn't measure organic compounds, only ions). As an example our de-ionised water is between 1 - 7 (all microS), distilled 20 - 30, tap about 600, tap in Corsham about 800, water out of the kettle about 1000 (1 milliS) and our rain water 75 - 150 (lower in the winter)

Nitrate is little bit more difficult, but you can just read it with a dip meter (calibrating the meter is the difficult bit). Phosphorus you have to in the lab., (usually by colorimetry) although it is easier in water than soils etc.

I still need to sort out a date (due Mrs Watts/the Childrens hectic social calendar) for my trip to the mean streets of S. Bristol, but I am looking forward to it.

cheers Darrel

I Know a woman in Blackpool who spawns bristlenose every time she cleans her external filter out once a month....she doesnt seem to be bothered about W/C and says that washing the filter out seems to do the trick...

oooops wrong page lol didn't realise everyone was talking about crazy chems in the water lol.....my tds is high but comes out of my R/0 machine stupidly low. and the tds on my hot water isn't even supposed to be drank as its well over 400.