Water hardness realities compared to what people say..

[Achilles1763]

Bit off topic and just from my personal experience... I got a red Atabapo 1 pike cichlid from my Lfs which has HITH despite being in the sump of the discus set up. Now I have him
Home in my 7ft with hard water (about 8.5) he has coloured up very well and the HITH is almost gone...

 

[dan518]

From what I can tell your whole theory comes down to the fact you have seen some large clown loaches on YouTube in what you think is hard water so now all fish can not only survive but thrive in any water conditions, alot possibly can but there are some species out there that can't. Also some of your other sweeping statement are wrong, your on a forum where the majority of members probably have wild court or f1 fish not 0.01% as you think. A good % of fish in this hobby won't make it past 5 years old not Internet dogma, more a sad truth.

 

[Achilles1763]

I agree with the above, WC fish can be picky but fish generally are amazingly adaptive (hence the evolutionary success) so without a decade long committed study of the long term effects, this cannot be satisfactory answered. So all we have is individual examples.

 

[predatorkeeper87]

All over the internet and among the "experts" I see loads of threads, videos and the like on water hardness and how you can only have soft water fish in soft water, which is fine.

Then I see tens of thousands of videos with people with limestone rock and admitted water hardness of 8 or general hard water parameters with giant clown loaches who supposedly cannot thrive in hard water.....and yet there they are...giant sized in hard water next to African Cichlids... I also see various LFS's with soft water fish in hard water. Also it's obvious a majority of people in the US who keep fish likely have hard water whether they know it or not and yet obviously still keep clown loaches and various other soft water fish.


So what's the deal with that? I hear people constantly railing on near religious levels about water parameters and softness then those same people will go in and compliment a video of a guy with giant clown loaches in hard water with limestone rocks.....

I can attest to both sides of this argument. I have ungodly hard water in the 7+ ranges straight outta the tap. My CL's are thriving in it. I also have a blackwater elong piranha tank and that fish has perked up remarkably since I turned his 125 blackwater. So in reality I believe fish can adapt to different water params than their natural ranges but I do believe keeping them closer to natural is always going to be best.

 

[predatorkeeper87]

Judging by size they're old enough to 100% defy the "soft water only" belief. They are in hard water tanks with hard water fish and they're large clown loaches (which remember, is directly contradictory to the experts).
There are millions of these videos on the internet which means there are millions of giant clown loaches raised in hard water tanks.

Heres my variable question. Does that video dictate where the owner got the loaches from and what size they were initially? Did they come from a blackwater tank? Wild caught at that size? Has THIS KEEPER had them 5+ years?

 

[duanes]

In the same vein, lets say there are 100 youtube videos with healthy clown loaches.
One might consider how many were imported, and died to achieve the 100. Maybe 10,000 were imported? or even 1 million?
And although I doubt many died from strictly from hard water. Most fish die, have chronic problems, or become acutely diseased from stress, and hard water for a soft water fish, may be just another nail in that coffin.
One might also consider that in any spawn, there may be 1 or 2 individuals that have an altered chromosome that allows for a less strict environment (survival of the fittest), and this may be the reason 100 are healthy you tubers out of 10,000 or 1 million that don't do so well.

 

[nzafi]

Youre making broad statements about youtube videos just like the "experts".

I posted a thread about a similar topic. I kept a black piranha (rhom) for 17 years. The first 13 years was in soft/acidic to neutral water. From 2013 to his death this year, he was in hard water. My water change frequency and even diet was mediocre to bad those 13 years but he thrived. When I moved him to hard water I was doing 50% weekly water changes, varied diet,etc that is everything you recommend. He developed HITH relatively quickly and I fought it for 2-3 years until he died a month ago.

You can argue the poor husbandry those first years were a possible, or it could have been the biggest change in his environment of hard water. It is impossible to come to a 100% conclusion without a controlled scientific study. Until then, keep what you want and do your best. That is all we can do.

 

[TxDemb4theoilOligarchs]

From what I can tell your whole theory comes down to the fact you have seen some large clown loaches on YouTube in what you think is hard water so now all fish can not only survive but thrive in any water conditions, alot possibly can but there are some species out there that can't. Also some of your other sweeping statement are wrong, your on a forum where the majority of members probably have wild court or f1 fish not 0.01% as you think. A good % of fish in this hobby won't make it past 5 years old not Internet dogma, more a sad truth.

Yes but this forum isn't indicative of the average statistical person who keeps fish. Most simply add a commercial water product to the tank water and that's it. Their water is likely statistically hard or moderately hard or slightly hard, regardless it's still "hard" and not "soft". Slightly hard water is still hard water.


Your other point is just 100% obviously wrong I'm sorry (and not just you, others have made this insane claim as well). Google, Youtube, basically every fish forum online, is chock full of hundreds of thousands of videos of large, 5+ year old fish in hard water. Clown loaches, SA Cichlids, Discus, German Rams. All next to solid limestone rocks. (Obviously not soft water). The insane, nutty argument that "Well most people never end up with big fish blah blah blah" is pure BS and we know this based on the internet being readily available. Giant clown loaches are not, in fact, rare. At all. Giant oscars are all over the place. Giant Discus are everywhere.

And not just that. On a statistical basis alone, we have to logically assume that for every random person who posts a video of their giant clown loaches or giant discuss in hardwater tanks that there must be at least 10,000 people with even bigger clown loaches and even larger discus in hardwater tanks who haven't decided to post videos and never will. Considering the popularity of fish tanks in America we can safely conclude that's likely if not outright factual and or an extremely conservative estimate if anything. So again the claims of "Only forum people can grow big fish and most fish die after 2 years blah blah" is completely opposite of a quick google search result.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I disagree with you. You are making qualitative observations based on google, YouTube, etc. searches, then add your assumptions, which appear groundless, and draw universe-wide quantitative conclusions.

What is your point? It seems no one agrees with you in any of your threads where you appear to start some kind of revolution in our thinking, challenging status quo etc.

You only convince yourself. Do you simply enjoy being a challenger and a rebel?

What do you yourself keep and what have you kept?

What's your fish-keeping history?

 

[Woefulrelic]

I disagree with you. You are making qualitative observations based on google, YouTube, etc. searches, then add your assumptions, which appear groundless, and draw universe-wide quantitative conclusions.

What is your point? It seems no one agrees with you in any of your threads where you appear to start some kind of revolution in our thinking, challenging status quo etc.

You only convince yourself. Do you simply enjoy being a challenger and a rebel?

What do you yourself keep and what have you kept?

What's your fish-keeping history?

Are you trying to tell me anecdotal evidence isn't the best kind of evidence????