Artificial rain fall- is it possible?

[ccole]

Hi guys and girls

A typical british weather situation-when you want rain it doesn't come!

I'm trying to get my bn's to breed and last time they did it I put rain water that I collected from the garden into the tank at the temperature straight from outside.

do you think it is possible too simulate rain by using a ph buffer, conditioner and leave it out side to drop temperature?

If you think it will work has any one tested the ph of their rain water?

Also has anyone noticed the average temperature outside when it rains?

If anyone has any more information or ideas please help!

Thanks cole

 

[RobHarrison]

Hi Cole, you simulate rain by using RO Water for water changes, i wouldnt be adding buffers. get yourself some 25l water containers and head to your local fish shop if there any good they will sell you RO water usually 25L costs £2.50

 

[ccole]

O fantatic! Glad their is another way than adding chemicals. my lfs do ro water so i'll be on my way. Thank s

 

[Irene0100]

yes RO is good for that, but dont do entire tank with RO, its fine for the odd bucket or two but if doing lots of w/c dont forget to add some re-mineralising salt into the RO

 

[macvsog23]

Sadly rain water is total unknown in its structure it can be pure it can be totally contaminated.
My self I would never use rain water but many people do with out and damage to fish. I just don’t want to take that risk I mean if you lived in Japan would you use rain water?
Using RO is a good trick.

I use RO water for all my tanks’ with HMA water added when simulating a rainy season, I feed with small insects i.e. blood worm and small frozen shrimps ect the I turn the heater of (A tip use 2 heaters one set at say 24 and one at 29 turn off just the high heater this stops any drops below 24)

I then just do 15% water changes with cold neat RO for two days try to keep the TDS and Kh at around 40% of what you normally do.

The turn the heaters back on and go back to the RO / HMA mix

 

[ccole]

cheers mac and irene - both of you make total sense.... i phoned my lfs and they they have sorted about 50ltr out for me that i will collect later (had to put a deposit down for water carriers) I will replace the 20% normal water change i do for the RO water change. Has anmyone invested in a RO unit?
thanks again
cole

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Just to add to what they others have said, it may help if you time your cool/low conductivity water change for low barometric pressure it may help to stimulate spawning.

You can get a "5 day forecast" for your area from the Met Office/BBC/Google etc. BBC one here <http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/> For Bristol it is high pressure all week (1021 - 1029 mb), so this would be a good week to start conditioning the fish with shrimp etc. and reducing the water changes to let the dGH/KH conductivity rise (but not too much), a couple of days before the pressure is set to fall below 990mb (usually accompanied with wind and rain), start Bob's routine.

cheers Darrel

 

[macvsog23]

Hi all,
Just to add to what they others have said, it may help if you time your cool/low conductivity water change for low barometric pressure it may help to stimulate spawning.

You can get a "5 day forecast" for your area from the Met Office/BBC/Google etc. BBC one here <http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/> For Bristol it is high pressure all week (1021 - 1029 mb), so this would be a good week to start conditioning the fish with shrimp etc. and reducing the water changes to let the dGH/KH conductivity rise (but not too much), a couple of days before the pressure is set to fall below 990mb (usually accompanied with wind and rain), start Bob's routine.

cheers Darrel

Again The main man has spoted my flaw

Yes rain is related to pressure, also I do a "hard Water" change for two of three days before my "Spawning program"
I brought or rather Mr G brought me a electric pressure thing that shows the pressure ect only cost around £10

Mind you Mr G said it was a limited edition and was worth £100

Regards Bob