How soft is too soft?

[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!

-al

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

[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.

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.