How soft is too soft?

[calihawker]

Normaly I'd post this to the water works section but since this concerns the contest discus specifically, I wanted to post it here. (beside there's a lot of traffic here these days:D)

My water parameters:

PH 7.2 after 24hrs. aging
GH<1
KH<1
TDS 5ppm according to my water company.

Really soft.

I'm not concerned about PH shifts since I'm changing 100% of the water daily and I know all the methods of hardening water, I do so with my display. The question is, is my water too soft to grow out these juvies? If so what would be optimum parameters?

Thanks!

[wgtaylor]

Normaly I'd post this to the water works section but since this concerns the contest discus specifically, I wanted to post it here. (beside there's a lot of traffic here these days:D)

My water parameters:

PH 7.2 after 24hrs. aging
GH<1
KH<1
TDS 5ppm according to my water company.

Really soft.

I'm not concerned about PH shifts since I'm changing 100% of the water daily and I know all the methods of hardening water, I do so with my display. The question is, is my water too soft to grow out these juvies? If so what would be optimum parameters?

Thanks!

Hi Steve,

I hope this contest will help answer many questions about keeping discus.
My gh and kh is less than 1 also. I don't understand your water company tds of 5ppm.:confused: Some people's ro water is sometimes higher than 5 depending on the water source. At some point you may want to get your own tds meter so you can track it yourself when you are breeding discus. My tap water tds is quite low, 29.5 ppm, 64.2 ms. Great for breeding but will have to see how it grows out discus. So far it seems to be fine. :o

Bill

My tap ppm
http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll50/wgtaylor/Simply%20Discus%20Contest%202009/tap-ppm.jpg

My tap ms
http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll50/wgtaylor/Simply%20Discus%20Contest%202009/tap-ms.jpg

[brewmaster15]

Man, I wish I had your water Guys!:)

-al

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

My only concern with such soft water for growout would be lack of minerals. So long as you feed a good quality food they will get their minerals that way.

-Ryan

[calihawker]

Thanks Ryan.

I'm putting together a new seafood/beefheart mix and if you or anyone else can suggest suppliments to add I would appreciate it. I'm already doing ~1 tbls liquid centrum per pound of mix.

At the same time, Angel (Sriangel) suggested that the best way to get calcium for bone development is through their gills. So I'm looking at that angle as well.

[wgtaylor]

My only concern with such soft water for growout would be lack of minerals. So long as you feed a good quality food they will get their minerals that way.

-Ryan

Hi Ryan,

How would we know if they are not getting enough minerals? Slow growth, birth defects or other outward signs? Just curious guys. Good point about the calcium Steve. Thanks,

Bill

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Thanks Ryan.

I'm putting together a new seafood/beefheart mix and if you or anyone else can suggest suppliments to add I would appreciate it. I'm already doing ~1 tbls liquid centrum per pound of mix.

At the same time, Angel (Sriangel) suggested that the best way to get calcium for bone development is through their gills. So I'm looking at that angle as well.

Calcium uptake is proportional to the uptake of many nutrients, phosphorus especially. Yes, they can use calcium in the water but dietary calcium is more effective. Only problem is it can be more difficult to administer, depending on the diet. Beefheart is very high in phosphorus, and I assume you wont be trying to grow discus on a vegetarian diet....so the only supplements you could try adding would be a good mineral premix. Florida Aqua Farms has a good mix: https://3kserver7.com/~frank/secure/agora.cgi?cart_id=7675733.2333*R03xV6&product=VITAMINS_MINERALS
It uses a calcium carbonate carrier, which is a soluble form of calcium that is usable to the fish....use that and you should be covered regardless of water parameters.

-Ryan

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Hi Ryan,

How would we know if they are not getting enough minerals? Slow growth, birth defects or other outward signs? Just curious guys. Good point about the calcium Steve. Thanks,

Bill

Minerals play a HUGE part in a fishes overall well being. Lack of minerals will represent themselves as slow/no growth, poor appetite, apathy, defects, immune deficiency, etc. Minerals even play a critical role in a fishes osmoregulation system. I believe we should all be adding a mineral premix to our diets, regardless of our water parameters.

-Ryan

[Eddie]

Normaly I'd post this to the water works section but since this concerns the contest discus specifically, I wanted to post it here. (beside there's a lot of traffic here these days:D)

My water parameters:

PH 7.2 after 24hrs. aging
GH<1
KH<1
TDS 5ppm according to my water company.

Really soft.

I'm not concerned about PH shifts since I'm changing 100% of the water daily and I know all the methods of hardening water, I do so with my display. The question is, is my water too soft to grow out these juvies? If so what would be optimum parameters?

Thanks!

Hey Steve, my water is very similar, straight from tap. The minerals my fish get are probably solely from the food and how I feed my fish. I am sure there is probably some source of minerals in water as well ;) I think your fish will be doing EXCELLENT.

All the best buddy,

Eddie

[SriAngel]

MY WATER HARDNESS right out of tap:
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/sriangel5/Discus%20Feeding/1.jpg

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/sriangel5/Discus%20Feeding/2.jpg

BURGER MIX
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/sriangel5/Discus%20Feeding/3.jpg

I had to put a shot of the bottle in the pic, lest people thought i put cocaine in my mix lol!
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/sriangel5/Discus%20Feeding/4.jpg

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/sriangel5/Discus%20Feeding/5.jpg

ALL MIXED TOGETHER. The Burger mix readily takes any additives easily since the consistency is that of peanut butter and doesn't need a binder as the 70 percent shrimp does the job.
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/sriangel5/Discus%20Feeding/6.jpg

I had a cool vid of them eating it but i didn't have time to upload it yet.

Ryan,
Excellent info about the mineral additives, placed an order already! As i only add calcium i often wonder what improvements i would get with potassium and other trace elements.

P.S. I love this competition, it gets a chance to share the excitement of growing discus, and will end up producing a plethora of new info on successfully producing dinner plate size discus. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

[calihawker]

Thanks for that link Ryan!!

Angel, how much of that calcium supplement do you add per pound of mix? I have a new batch going in the blender today.:)

Oh, and BTW my TDS tested 20 ppm.

[Chad Hughes]

Steve,

Start breeding discus! You have great water for it!

Best wishes!

[SriAngel]

Thanks for that link Ryan!!

Angel, how much of that calcium supplement do you add per pound of mix? I have a new batch going in the blender today.:)

Oh, and BTW my TDS tested 20 ppm.

I add very little about .25 ounce per lb of food. I prefer to add all my supplements fresh after i thaw out the food, there are some ramblings about nutrients being compromised by freezing. I also add 1 drop of centrum liquid vitamins in. Depending on your mix, you might be better off blending it intogether and freezing it. The burger is like peanut butter or industrial adhesive it binds and keeps everything together, some other mixes will break up if you try to add stuff in after the fact. As for your water its true great for breeding, but then you run into the wall i did, gill deformities and slow growth. It took me about 3 months to get them to 2", which might be okay.

Just a note: this is just my experience, as you are an experience reef keeper you have all the fishkeeping ability, im just erring on the side of caution. Try the calcium supplement and as this competition progresses keep an eye on your growth rates. This is going to produce tons of data on how variable water chemistry affects discus growth. I wonder if everyone is going to take readings of their hardness, pH, this will be useful in my opinion.

Angel

[kaceyo]

Steve & Angel,
Your water is near exactly like mine. 44ppm TDS from the tap and 1dKH. I've been adding calcium to my BH mix since I started with discus. I also add Calcium Chloride and Magnesium Sulphate to the water sometimes to bring it up to 200ppm. I do think I've gotten slightly better growth when adding calcium/magnesium and even see some improvement of the shapes overall. Or it could be a case of me seeing what I want to see, lol!

Kacey

[calihawker]

This is going to produce tons of data on how variable water chemistry affects discus growth. I wonder if everyone is going to take readings of their hardness, pH, this will be useful in my opinion

Wow, this is a tough one. I believe in this contest as a source of knowledge, and the ability to do empirical research here is invaluable. But my competitive nature tells me I need to take every advantage.

I'm gonna have to sleep on this one.

[wgtaylor]

Wow, this is a tough one. I believe in this contest as a source of knowledge, and the ability to do empirical research here is invaluable. But my competitive nature tells me I need to take every advantage.
I'm gonna have to sleep on this one.

Ok guys, I am going to be the sacrificial lamb. I will keep everything I do simple and feed foods with no mineral additives or vitamins. I just moved to this Pacific Northwest soft water area and really interested in establishing a baseline with the effects of soft water.
Steve, I am sure you will do great and hopefully get much better growth than mine which would show what extra care can do. Grow-em-big, you can do it !



Steve & Angel,
Your water is near exactly like mine. 44ppm TDS from the tap and 1dKH. I've been adding calcium to my BH mix since I started with discus. I also add Calcium Chloride and Magnesium Sulphate to the water sometimes to bring it up to 200ppm. I do think I've gotten slightly better growth when adding calcium/magnesium and even see some improvement of the shapes overall. Or it could be a case of me seeing what I want to see, lol!
Kacey

Hey Kacey, your posts was what I read that really sparked my interest in the effects of soft water up here. Your posts are what makes me think my efforts with these fish will show a marked slower growth. Let's see if we see what you see ! lol



Just a note: this is just my experience, as you are an experience reef keeper you have all the fishkeeping ability, im just erring on the side of caution. Try the calcium supplement and as this competition progresses keep an eye on your growth rates. This is going to produce tons of data on how variable water chemistry affects discus growth. I wonder if everyone is going to take readings of their hardness, pH, this will be useful in my opinion.
Angel

Couldn't agree with you more, can be really useful info. That's one of my main reasons for entering the competition. Ok and knocking the socks off the competition, ha ha
Good info and pics you provided too Angel.

Bill

[wgtaylor]

Oh, and a little disclaimer to my previous post,
I think my batch of discus will grow just fine, maybe slower if what everyone's observations are correct. I would not do it this way if I thought it would do permanent harm to them! At the end of the year I should be able to pump them up if they are a little behind. I think! :):):)

[calihawker]

You beat me to the punch there Bill.:) My decision is to not mess the water but use supplements in their diet.

I agree, I think all the contestants are poised to raise some top notch discus and the knowledge we gain here far outweighs the results.

I wonder if there is a hobbiest around here who would'nt mind compiling data from all the contestants, from water parameters to feeding, water changes etc. The contestants would have to stay fairly current with whatever changes they make throughout the contest. Just a thought.

[pcsb23]

Man, I wish I had your water Guys!:)

-alme too :(

5ppm really does sound low, if it's right then make sure the food is well balanced in particular the mineral content.

Nice fish too, time I moved to the USA I think ;)

[Roxanne]

,, I'm already doing ~1 tbls liquid centrum per pound of mix.
.

Hi Steve:)

Do you mean 'centrum' as in the human supplement?

Roxanne

[calihawker]

me too :(

5ppm really does sound low, if it's right then make sure the food is well balanced in particular the mineral content.

Nice fish too, time I moved to the USA I think ;)


It actually tested 20 ppm not much but a little something. I made a new batch of seafood/beefheart mix with suppliments but so far they are still not real hot on it. I'm gonna give it a couple days and if they still don't go for it I'm gonna have to change things around.



Hi Steve

Do you mean 'centrum' as in the human supplement?

Roxanne

Yes, it's the liquid centrum multi vitamin.

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

If you truely want to track growth on your fish in soft water vs hard water, dont go by length of fish alone....get yourself a good digital gram scale and weigh them every 2 weeks to track growth (to the hundreths place is all you need). If you notice a lag in growth inbetween weigh-ins, change your food up a bit. Most likely it is because they are at a stage in their development where they need certain extra nutrients which your current diet is limiting. Record your findings each weigh-in and organize it on charts so we can get a good track of growth until the end of the challenge. It is the first part in developing "standards" in discus nutrition, growth curves, and overall comparison (soft water vs hard).

-Ryan

[wgtaylor]

You beat me to the punch there Bill.:) My decision is to not mess the water but use supplements in their diet.

Well that sounds good Steve, I wouldn't mess with the water much either. Adding the supplements in the food would give us another variable to see results.
I chose to keep things simple because that's the limit of my abilities. :o


me too :(
5ppm really does sound low, if it's right then make sure the food is well balanced in particular the mineral content.
Nice fish too, time I moved to the USA I think ;)

You know Paul, you and Al do mighty fine with the water you have, anything better would be scary. We all have to learn how to adjust to the water we have and do the best we can.

Bill

[kaceyo]

Ryan,
Are you guys planning on doing any soft vs hard water growth comparisons there? The only way to know that any difference in growth rate is actually due to water hardness, and not some other variable, is to run the tests with all other parameters being identical. That could never be done using individual peoples tanks. Not that it wouldn't be fun and interesting for us to try. But if you could come up with some real evidence one way or the other that would be great.

Kacey

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Ryan,
Are you guys planning on doing any soft vs hard water growth comparisons there? The only way to know that any difference in growth rate is actually due to water hardness, and not some other variable, is to run the tests with all other parameters being identical. That could never be done using individual peoples tanks. Not that it wouldn't be fun and interesting for us to try. But if you could come up with some real evidence one way or the other that would be great.

Kacey

I agree with you. In order to make the hard/soft water study repeatable and able to draw conclusions it must be done by a single person/facility. What I stated earlier was mostly advice to all who read to keep track of the growth and adjust their diets accordingly.

We have thought about doing a hard/soft water study a few times, but I think we are going to stick to the very basics at first and build to things like that. Not to say that we wont get there, but it would be way down the road. Maybe I should ask everyone on the forum what they think we should work on...what we should study and start to form better conclusions/facts about discus production

-Ryan

[calihawker]

I agree with you. In order to make the hard/soft water study repeatable and able to draw conclusions it must be done by a single person/facility. What I stated earlier was mostly advice to all who read to keep track of the growth and adjust their diets accordingly.

We have thought about doing a hard/soft water study a few times, but I think we are going to stick to the very basics at first and build to things like that. Not to say that we wont get there, but it would be way down the road. Maybe I should ask everyone on the forum what they think we should work on...what we should study and start to form better conclusions/facts about discus production

-Ryan

I totaly agree. Without every other variable being constant, it would be difficult if not impossible to draw conclusions based on water conditions alone.

[SriAngel]

I totaly agree. Without every other variable being constant, it would be difficult if not impossible to draw conclusions based on water conditions alone.

Yes I agree,

An experiment i would design would be take the 6 fish, set up 3 - 20 gallon tanks, with 2 fish each in them. Then one being the control having the soft water and food without any supplements, this being the control. The second tank would be soft water with mineral supplements. The third tank with hardened water and no minerals in the food. Of course, this might be difficult to do with the competition, i might try this experiment out with a group of my fry and post the results in the main section of the forum.

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Yes I agree,

An experiment i would design would be take the 6 fish, set up 3 - 20 gallon tanks, with 2 fish each in them. Then one being the control having the soft water and food without any supplements, this being the control. The second tank would be soft water with mineral supplements. The third tank with hardened water and no minerals in the food. Of course, this might be difficult to do with the competition, i might try this experiment out with a group of my fry and post the results in the main section of the forum.


Sounds good Angel, but I would include more than 2 fish per tank. To make it a reliable/credible study you need atleast 6 replicates of each. So 6 fish per tank, 6 tanks of replicates (36 fish for softwater, 36 for hard water, and 36 for control). It sounds like a lot, but in fish nutrition/growth studies, replicates are extremely important as little things could effect a single replicate and could throw off the whole study if you dont have sufficient replicates to provide enough scientific information.

-Ryan

[Roxanne]

Yes, it's the liquid centrum multi vitamin.

Hi Steve, Sorry to go backwards, can I just ask, Do you add it to the water or the food? And at what ratio? Tx in advance.

Roxanne

[calihawker]

Hi Steve, Sorry to go backwards, can I just ask, Do you add it to the water or the food? And at what ratio? Tx in advance.

Roxanne

No problem Rox.:)
I added 3 Tbls to the food mix. About 2 1/2 pounds of food.

[SriAngel]

Sounds good Angel, but I would include more than 2 fish per tank. To make it a reliable/credible study you need atleast 6 replicates of each. So 6 fish per tank, 6 tanks of replicates (36 fish for softwater, 36 for hard water, and 36 for control). It sounds like a lot, but in fish nutrition/growth studies, replicates are extremely important as little things could effect a single replicate and could throw off the whole study if you dont have sufficient replicates to provide enough scientific information.

-Ryan


Sounds good Ryan,

This aint the University of SriAngel, so i will leave the statistics and the 72 fish needed for the growth study for you academic types. I've seen your greenhouse over there so no excuses! Although you can always bend any scientific experiement to your will statistically, look at the original studies done on smoking back in the 60's! I designed my experiment after something that Jack Wattley designed in one of his books where he tested for growth with live foods, flake foods, and beefheart. I just want to try something empirically that will ease my mind. I certainly know the growth rates of my fish in the past witout any supplements in softwater..sheesh i got 2 years of data compiled. I've noted significant improvement with the crushed oyster shell, and even more now with the added supplements (hopefully perfect it with the mineral supplement from the link you suggested).

Angel