the filter - Tampa Bay Aquarium Society

TBAS . . . Since 1992
THE
FILTER
March 2012: Volume 20 Issue 7
Monthly Program:
Tampa Bay’s Own . . .
Beth Privett: Keeping and raising Sea Horse’s
Monthly Bowl Show:
1) New World Cichlids 2) Old World Cichlids
COVER PHOTO: Mesonauta festivus. . . photo by MFJacobs 2011
Tampa Bay Aquarium Society
“The Filter”
Tampa/St. Pete Florida
CONTENTS
March 2012
Volume 20 Issue 7
President
‘Dre’ Alvarado
V-President
Al Alvarez
Secretary
Tanja Deiederich
Treasurer
Patty Moncrief
3) Conductivity - SALT - Hardness
Mike Jacobs
5) Corydoras pygmaeus
Joe Berberich
6) EXCHANGE BULLETINS
10) BOD Meetings . . . Internet Ideas . . . Monthly Programs
11) Monthly Bowl Show Categories
BOD
Hank Darin
Thelma Frias
Joe Gargas
Mike Jacobs
Jim Norris
Bill Shields
Al Starkey
Welcoming
Mike LoBello
WebSite &
Newsletter Editor
Mike Jacobs
Panda Tetra . . . Aphyocharax paraguayensis
. . . photo by MFJacobs . . . 2011
........................ TBAS March 2012
-3-
This is all starting to really make
sense now: This
CONDUCTIVITY “thing”!! I
have been keeping
tropical fish now
for some 50+
years but I had
never learned
about conductivity until a short
bunch of years
ago . . . maybe 9-10 years ago or so. I was at Patrick Daley’s Discus (Oscar
now) hatchery in Tampa, Florida and in our conversation he started talking about
conductivity for his fish and I started talking hardness for my fish. We . . . or
me for sure . . . were confused for a good bit of the conversation until he just flat
said “Mike . . . you need to get current and start to learn about conductivity.”
So I did! Well, I thought I did. I promptly went home and looked it up on the
internet and thought . . . “echhh . . . it’s all just numbers meaning the same thing
as hardness sooooooooo????? . . . BUT . . . Patrick says, and Patrick knows more
than I do about hardness and conductivity and the like, so I better start thinking
and talking CONDUCTIVITY not HARDNESS!!” . . . and I did!
The years started rolling by and my thoughts of aquariums and the hardness/conductivity theme never came up in my circle of aquarium friends but I
kept up my referring to conductivity instead of hardness until I was using the two
interchangeably. BAD MISTAKE!!!! I started to be corrected on some of the
Internet Forums I was on and I kept telling them I knew the difference
. . . didn’t they??? I kept asking them their hardness and then asking for uS
(microsiemens . . . the units in conductivity) and they thought I was nuts and “. .
. what’s the matter with you that’s not the units of Hardness.” Then I would say
something stupid like . . . “Well . . . it’s all the same!!!” Folks, it really isn’t . . .
but it can be . . . kinda . . . well . . . maybe, IF!
I know, I’m gonna sound like your favorite high school Chemistry
teacher you always fell asleep in class for, but stay with me here and I think I can
help because it has been a very real informative journey for me too!
There are two parts to this dialogue today:
1) Total Hardness & Conductivity
2) Conductivity & Hardness & SALT
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TBAS March 2012 ....................
1) For starts what is TOTAL HARDNESS as it pertains to the aquarium
hobby: it’s the measure of Calcium and Magnesium in the water. That’s it!!!
There are several other types of measures of hardness and units but they are
quickly going by the aquarium way side so let’s not muddy the water trying to
deal with them, let’s just stay with this definition of TOTAL HARDNESS! What
are the units of this hardness . . . ppm (parts per million) (or milligrams per liter
- mg/l) . . . ie: 52 ppm means there are 52 ppm of Calcium and/or Magnesium
in the sample tested (as calcium carbonate). It’s tested with a kit that involves a
sample of water you put in a tube and then you add drops of a solution looking
for a change of color (titration) and you then count the number of drops and
then convert to the measure . . . kind of a pain! Ok . . . done, except Calcium
and Magnesium are also called salts, in science (they are also known as divalent
cations as they each have a +2 charge) . . . PLEASE REMEMBER THAT!!! . . .
and the Calcium and Magnesium salts are in the aquarium water . . . oh, boy are
they ever!
CONDUCTIVITY (Electrical Conductivity) . . . Electrical conductivity is the measure of the total concentration of dissolved SALTS in water. When
salts dissolve in water, they give off electrically charged ions that conduct
electricity. The more salt ions in the water, the greater the electrical conductivity the meter will show. RO has almost no salt ions so the conductivity is LOW.
Harder water contains more salts, and therefore more ions, and therefore has
a high electrical conductivity. “Crudely and somewhat imprecisely stated, the
higher the conductivity, the more total ions — the “harder” the water”. (1) . . . I
told you it was “KINDA NIFTY”!!! Boy is this simple!
Are you getting ahead of me????? I am too . . . you are thinking then,
if there is Calcium and Magnesium in the water they will register on the conductivity meter . . . RIGHT??? RIGHT!!! But there is no direct correlation/
conversion with the amount of Calcium and Magnesium to the microsiemens
(uS) reading from the conductivity meter . . . nothing. But as “scientists” we can
make some strange water that is soft yet has a high uS reading. An example of
when this strange water occurs is when water is treated with the common household water softener. The hardness is removed but the conductivity is found to
be slightly higher, even with the loss of the Calcium and Magnesium, than that
of the original water because of the salt involved! It’s not VERY USUAL . . .
but possible . . . so the conductivity meter and it’s uS reading must really stand
alone from hardness and its titration method . . . unless we are really, really good
friends talking informally.
Having said that, in the real world of practicality, uS and the hardness
reading are correlated only when you have a common beginning . . . a base
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........................ TBAS March 2012
-5-
line . . . your tap water. Titrating to get a hardness reading is a pain (well . . . 5
minutes if you have the test kit) to do but you can measure the uS’s of your tap
water in seconds by getting a glass of tap water and sticking the conductivity
meter in it and turning on the power. Let’s say you get a reading of 550 uS (approx. St. Pete/Tampa, Florida reading) right out of the tap. Ok . . . write it down
and remember it . . . that’s your baseline. Without RO water in your aquarium
water you are most likely never going to be below that mark. But you now stick
your conductivity meter in your aquarium, because Mike says to and turn the
power on and it reads 879 uS!!!!!! Holy BATMAN . . . that’s not right, my tap
water is 550 uS!!! It may well be correct if it’s been quite some time since you
have changed your aquarium water. Salts of all kinds are getting into your fish’s
home by way of fish waste (Ammonia . . . it’s a salt) and untold other salts from
the waste and respiration of the fish and “ . . . also fish food has Chloride, Phosphate and Sodium in it and the conductivity will tend to climb much higher than
even just (with) the Magnesium and Calcium.”(1) That, my friends is the best
use of a conductivity meter. To tell you, remind you, when it’s time to change
water because of the build-up of unwanted salts in the closed aquarium . . . this,
of course, is BASED ON YOUR BASELINE MEASURE!
Now . . . what sort of reading should scream “CHANGE THE WATER!!!!” . . . folks, that’s a relative question. How often should you wash your
hands? I would say to you: when you approach a 50% increase in uS’s reading
it’s time to start getting out the hose and bucket . . . higher uS’s readings are not
really very good for fish! Can you push it past that 50% level . . . for sure . . .
but are you in this hobby to make your fish swim in their own waste or polluted
water or what?
Well . . . back to the original question . . . can a conductivity meter be
used to measure and talk about hardness. Well, yes . . . but more directly NO!
In order for a uS’s reading to be used for a hardness reading your baseline must
be known and even then it’s possible for the Calcium and Magnesium in your
water to stay constant and something else to have gone up and therefore your
uS’s reading will go up, BUT . . . probably not enough to argue (5-10 uS . . .
home softening units) . . . so I really can KINDA use my CONDUCTIVITY
METER to help me deal/talk of my hardness . . . but don’t tell the hard core
hardness folks!!!!!
2) Let’s talk for real now . . . let’s cut through all of the garbage and let’s talk
water and fish and reality.
A secondary use of a conductivity meter is to measure the uS’s in the water of
where you are getting your fish. There is a tendency, of late, for tropical fish
wholesalers and tropical fish stores to add salt to their water for various reasons.
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TBAS March 2012 ....................
This is terribly bad for the state of your tropical fish. I have measured water
from wholesalers and fish stores in the area and the uS’s reading was in the area
of 4500-7500 uS. Folks that is death to your tropical fish when you bring them
home and plop them into your tank with a conductivity reading of 600 uS. Most
fish will be DOA in 10-15 days trying to come down from that high of a uS
condition. The fish’s osmoregulatory system simply can’t stand that large of a
change . . . that quickly.
Let’s forget the scientific reasons for the “osmoregulatory shock”.
Let’s take a quick look at the situation from a practical view point.
What sort of uS’s reading do your fish come from in the wild:
PLE
M
EXA
PLE
M
EXA
Chocolate Gourami
Dwarf rasbora
LE
MP
EXA
20-50 uS
100-200 uS
LE
MP
EXA
LE
MP
EXA
Dwarf Cichlids
Cockatoo Cichlid
50-100 uS
Angelfish
Angelfish
200-500 uS
Rainbow
Rainbow Fish
>500 uS
Guppy
Sailfin Molly
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........................ TBAS March 2012
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Do you get the point???? Look at the uS’s readings from the wild and remember
the amount of uS’s I have measured at the wholesalers and the shops personally .
. . 4500 – 7500uS!!
MATH
Watch this math closely now . . . I always think along math lines being
a retired Mathematics teacher! From a practical standpoint, think of saltwater
fish. They want their salt levels to be between 1.018 – 1.025 on a hydrometer. MATH TIME: 1.025 – 1.018 = .007, .007/1.018= .0068, which is a .68%
change (note: .68% not 68% . . . remember your percentages, class??). But let’s
compare Saltwater salinity readings converted to uS reading so we are comparing apples to apples . . . 1.018 converts to approximately 43,000 uS and 1.025
converts to approximately 56,000 uS(2). Doing the math on the uS of saltwater
gives us . . . 56,000 – 43,000/43,000 = .302, which is a 30.2% change. On the
Freshwater side the calculations we have the following 7500uS (local wholesaler) – 50uS (origination of some fish) = 7450 uS, 7450/50=149 which is a
14,900% change for some freshwater fish. Read that again . . . 14,900% change
in salinity for freshwater fish.
These are saltwater fish folks and they want that narrow a gap of salt
for them . . . 30.2% . . . that’s NOTHING IN TERMS OF PERCENT compared to 14,900%. How would you compare a change of 30.2% to 14,900%?
14,900% is 493.4 times larger than 30.2% (14,900/30.2 = 493.4). That’s
huge . . . just monstrous! Why do we then take FRESHWATER FISH that
have been in water of 20-70 uS for the last 400,000+ years and put them
into water with a reading of 7500 uS from the addition of SALT and subject
them to a 14,900% change . . . that’s 493.4 times more than SALTWATER
FISH?????? Just sit and think about that please . . . FRESHWATER fish get
a 14,900% change and SALTWATER fish are allowed only a 30.2% change of
SALT???? Does that make ANY SENSE TO YOU WHAT-SO-EVER?????
It totally, totally baffles me . . . COMPLETLY!!!!!!!!!!!!! But you can
keep yourself from being a victim by taking your trusty CONDUCTIVITY METER with you when you go to the fish store next time. If they get uptight about
the conductivity meter I might consider leaving . . . without the fish!
Leave the salt for your “corn on the cob!!”
REFERENCE:
1) http://malawicichlids.com/mw01011.htm
Last Update: 26 April 2009 Web Author: M.K. Oliver, Ph.D. Copyright © 1997-2011 by M. K. Oliver - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2) http://www.aquatronica.com/pdf_download/eng/sale_in_acquario_marino_EN.pdf
3) http://www.fluval-g.com/pdf/Conductivity_Chart.pdf
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TBAS March 2012 ....................
Just about a year ago I wrote an article on Corydoras habrosus. When
I first got them I was told they were C. pygmaeus but after careful research they
turned out to be C. habrosus. This time I checked and even went to a higher
authority . . . Mr. Bill Shields and made sure these were the right fish namely C.
pygmaeus. I wish to again thank Mr. Shields for his grateful help and astonishing fish knowledge.
These little catfish orignally come from South America’s inland waters of the
Madeira River Basin in Brazil. But now can be found bred locally.
There are about five different species of pygmy cories, but only three I
have found listed at a reasonable price. They are C.habrosus, C.pygmaeus, and
C.hastatus. I did find C.gracilis but the price on line was eight fish for $225.00.
This I believe is a little much for fish smaller than my skillet.
All adult pygmy cory’s can be distingished from one species to another. C.
pygmaeus has a white-silverish body and three black lines. One black line goes
from the eye to the caudal fin on top of the body, another runs from the nose to
the caudal fin in the middle of the body and ends with a black sploch at the tail.
The last black line runs from the pectral fin to the anal fin.
While these little cats are quite peaceful they do best if kept in a group of at
least six or more. This will ony take a ten gallon tank for you to set up. My ten
gallon set up is fairly simple. The water is 70ph, 100ppm in hardness, with a
bare bottom a small piece of driftwood with java fern and a little java moss. And
they seem to be happy. They bred anyway!
Feeding these little guys isn’t hard at all. A good tropical flake is greatly appreciated and every so often cut up frozen bloodworms for them. They are not
picky! As C. pygmaeus only grows to about one inch any other small worm like
food will also be ingested.
Watching thes little guys just swimming around and doing whatever, is a
joy to see. They don’t bother anybody and are very peaceful. If you ever get a
chance and have room get some. You won’t be disappointed. Fins up!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To Table of Contents
........................ TBAS March 2012
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1) Atlanta Tropical Fish
5) New England Cichlids
3) Long Island Aquariums
6) Pacific Coast Cichlids
4) Motor City Tropicals
7) Youngstown Aquarist
These are the newest of the Exchange Bulletins that have been sent to TBAS.
To view these go to www.tbas1.com and on the left click on EXCHANGE
BULLETINS. ENJOY THE EXCHANGE!!!
Candy Cane Tetra, Hyphessobrycon bentosi . . . photo by mfjacobs 2012
Coastal Aquarium Society
Serving the Sarasota, Fl Area
Meets the 1st Wednesday of Each Month
http://coastalaquariumsociety.com
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TBAS March 2012 ....................
2011 - 2012
November . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hank Darin
December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gene Linkoski
January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joe Gargas
February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . State Fair
March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bill Shields
April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jim Norris
May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mike Jacobs
June. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
July. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hank Darin
March Beth Privett---Keeping and raising Sea Horse’s
April Andres Ryan---- Fish Farmer & Fish Wholesaler
May Tony Silva----Collecting Discus in Brazil
June TBAS 20th Anniversary ( More to come)
INTERNET IDEAS
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjjyCxKwMT8&feature=related
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TIA9DGdk_s&feature=related
3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2vLJ_vCspk&feature=related
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........................ TBAS March 2012
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MONTHLY BOWL
SHOW
January
1) Livebearers 2) Egglayers
February
1) Killifish 2) Invertebrates
March
1) Old World Cichlids
2) New World Cichlids
April
1) Sucker Catfish
2) All Other Cats
May
1) Livebearers Spawned &
Raised
2) Egglayers Spawned &
Raised
June
1) Open
2) Fish Shirt (must be worn)
July
1) Barbs & Rasboras
2) Danios, White Clouds & Rainbows
August
1) Bettas
2) Anabantids
September
1) Characins
2) Sharks, Loaches & Eels
October
1) Native Florida Fish
2) Any Plants
November
1) Goldfish & Koi
2) Participant Created Fish Art
December
No. . . Bowl Show
. . . Awards!!!!!
To Table of Contents
PO Box 27044 Tampa, FL 33623
Tampa Bay Aquarium Society
STAMP