Water Quality

Water Quality
By Betty Harris
okcaa.org/articles




Happy water is the key to happy fish.

Just because your water looks clear doesn't mean it's happy!

The very first thing to do if something is wrong with the fish is to ALWAYS check the water parameters and if out of whack, do a partial water change. When doing partial water changes, always use a water conditioner that detoxifies chlorine (at minimum) and heavy metals, and match the temperature of the change water to within a couple of degrees of the tank.

Ammonia: should be 0ppm.

Symptoms include: irritation, flashing, black areas, frayed fins, darting back and forth in the tank in uncontrollable spasms, spinning in small circles, and finally laying on the bottom

How toxic ammonia is in your tank depends on your water temperature and pH. Higher water temperature and higher pH make ammonia more toxic. If you pH is 8 you're going to have to work harder at keeping ammonia levels low than if your pH is 7. In general with:

• pH=7.0, total ammonia should not exceed 4ppm
• pH=7.2, total ammonia should not exceed 3ppm
• pH=7.4, total ammonia should not exceed 2ppm
• pH=7.6, total ammonia should not exceed 1ppm
• pH=7.8, total ammonia should not exceed .75ppm
• pH=8.0, total ammonia should not exceed .5ppm

More detailed information on ammonia toxicity, pH, and water temperature is here.

Treatment:

• Reduce feeding. High protein foods result in more ammonia. Feed low protein foods like fresh veggies and fruits until your biofilter bacteria catch up.
• Vacuum the substrate well. The bacteria that consume debris produce ammonia, so reducing the debris in the tank should reduce ammonia production.
• If your tap water has little or no ammonia after it's dechlorinated, partial water changes will help to bring ammonia down to safe levels. Either Prime or Amquel can also be used to convert ammonia to its less toxic form, however, you must have a 2 bottle ammonia test kit or you will not get accurate water test readings. The Seachem Ammonia Alert card will still give accurate ammonia readings when using Prime or Amquel. Note that if your water isn't well buffered, Amquel will lower and perhaps crash your pH (Make it too acidic), so you will most likely have to buffer with baking soda to keep that from happening.
• Ammonia adsorbing resins such as zeolite can also be used, however, they are just a temporary bandaid.

NitrIte: should be 0ppm

NitrIte is toxic. It enters thru the gills and binds up the red blood cells keeping them from being able to carry oxygen. Salt helps protect against nitrIte poisoning because the chlorine in it competes with nitrIte for uptake thru the gills. You should not see detectable levels of nitrIte in an established tank. If you are detecting nitrIte in an established tank, you need to reexamine your filtration, fish load and husbandry practices.

Symptoms include: Oxygen seeking behavior. e.g. rapid gill movements, staying near the top of the top, gulping air, etc, lethargy, gills are brown instead of bright cherry red.

Treatment:

• Reduce feeding. High protein foods result in more ammonia and thus more nitrIte. Feed low protein foods like fresh veggies and fruits until your biofilter bacteria catch up.
• Vacuum the substrate well. The bacteria that consume debris produce ammonia, so reducing the debris in the tank should reduce ammonia and thus nitrIte production.
• Partial water changes will help to bring nitrIte down to safe levels. Add salt at 1 teaspoon per gallon of water. Predissolve in tank water and make sure it disperses well when you add it. You can use table salt as long as it doesn't contain yellow prussiate of soda. Rock salt is cheap and works well. Until nitrIte drops to 0ppm, when you do partial water changes just add 1 tsp of salt per gallon changed untill nitrItes come down to 0, then you can skip adding any more salt. Your partial water changes will then remove it over time.

Nitrate: 0-40ppm (optimal)

Symptoms: can cause flip over problems, dilated blood vessles in fins, decreased immune response.

Treatment: partial water changes will help to bring nitrAte down to safe levels. Adding fast growing plants may also help keep nitrAte from building up.

pH/KH: 7.5-8.3 (Optimal range)/ 120-300ppm

If your pH is lower, it will have a tendency to slip down over time. If pH gets down to 6, it can be deadly for your fish and for the bacteria that keep your water happy. The pH of blood is around 7.4 and there are only a layer of two of cells between the fish's blood and the water. Rapid swings in pH or extreme pH can cause the blood to get too alkaline or too acidic.

Symptoms include: irritation, flashing, frayed fins

Treatment:

• Partial water changes will help to maintain pH if your water is well buffered (KH around 120ppm).
• Baking soda can also be used to raise pH by raising KH. pH should be raised slowly, no more than .4 per day. Predissolve baking soda in tank water and add slowly to a high water flow area. Here is a calculator that will help you figure out how much baking soda to use.
• Crushed oyster shells or crushed coral placed inside a media container of mesh bag in a high water flow area will also help maintain pH. They dissolve when pH falls below 7.5 and increase KH (bicarbonates--which help to maintain pH) and GH (your general hardness).

General hardness (GH): 100+ppm (optimal)

These are the dissolved minerals in your water, primarily calcium and magnesium. Goldfish can tolerate a wide range of hardness levels, and generally your source water should be fine unless it's really really soft (low GH). GH helps to keep your pH from getting too high and aids in the fish being able to maintain proper fluid balance.

Water test kits for monitoring your water quality.