Best medication for cloudy eye....

[peathenster]

Good info RD. I've just learned the hard way - ordering fish from vendors keeping them in pH8 water, only to have them crash and die within a day in my pH5 water. Cloudy eyes and "burnt" fins....and it's definitely not ammonia. That's 1000x more free H+.

It's possible that SOMETIMES pH difference is just an indirect measurement of TDS differences. But think about pH crashes in existing tanks, which happens often on my only bare bottom tank. Fish become very uncomfortable and, in a couple of cases, die within hours or a day. I don't think it's TDS change as nothing is added to or taken out of the tank, and TDS is close to zero to begin with. Only thing I can think of is pH dropping from 5-5.5 to 2-3. My water is too soft and there's virtually nothing that buffers any pH change. When they die, they have the same "cloudy eye" and burnt fins.

A more extreme example is what a friend of mine recently went through. He's an experienced discus breeder and bought one of those giant totes to store his RO water. He was told that the tote was food safe and saw nothing in it, so he went ahead and used it. Turned out there's trace amount of HCl in it that turned the water to pH2, and killed some of his breeders in a day. I wouldn't think there's much TDS change involved.

On the other hand, I sometimes have to salt my fish. When I do, I use 1lb 10oz per 100g. That's a huge amount of salt when you think about TDS changes, perhaps hundreds of fold increase in a few minutes. Never seen any fish looking uncomfortable short term or long term. Any fish, even the wild discus.

So these are the examples of pH changes independent of TDS changes that kill fish, and drastic TDS changes with no pH change that don't have any effect. Perhaps pH changes are not the only factor here, but I hardly think it's a myth.

 

[anarekist]

you need crushed coral. it will buffer your water to around 7.2 pH and keep it there.

 

[Vancouver_98683]

^ Good Informative read Peathenster. Appreciate it ^

 

[Vancouver_98683]

you need crushed coral. it will buffer your water to around 7.2 pH and keep it there.

Does anyone know this? What is the peak crushed coral can raise your PH in a freshwater environment. My LFS stated 7.4-7.6 . Is this accurate?

 

[peathenster]

I used it before by putting a small bag in a filter. Bumped my water up to pH8.4-8.5. So it definitely works, lol.

 

[RD.]

Pete - typically cloudy eyes & burnt fins are indeed caused by free ammonia. If the fish are acclimatized improperly (such as a drip system to the bag, and/or floating the bags) the toxic effect of ammonia becomes even more severe. Seen this thousands of times over the years with fish being imported and where ammonia levels in the bag water were high.

I'm not sitting in front of your tanks with all of the parameters at hand, so I honestly have no idea what's taken place in your tanks in the past. Fair enough?

What I do know is that in the vast majority of cases, a change in pH will seldom cause any harm to a fish (short or long term), and almost never cause death. A drastic change in TDS on the other hand can. If you read the links that I posted it should also be clear as to why an increase in TDS is not nearly as life threatening to a fish, as a sudden decrease.

It's all about osmotic balance. So in your example of adding large amounts of salt, within minutes, it will cause an imbalance in the fish, and some stress, but it will be in the form of dehydration, which most freshwater fish can adjust to. This is why most people will suggest that one adds salt gradually over time, and not all in one big dump.

Go the opposite direction, and the fish overhydrates, and if it happens too rapidly the cells burst, which is what causes the "shock", and sometimes death.

The science on all of this is pretty clear, I don't think that there's any debate as to how fish osmoregulate, in freshwater, or salt.

 

[aclockworkorange]

I need some TDS... Totally Delicious Sandwiches.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

 

[anarekist]

I used it before by putting a small bag in a filter. Bumped my water up to pH8.4-8.5. So it definitely works, lol.

i find that hard to believe. i have about 50 pounds of crushed coral in my sump and my ph never goes higher than 7.5

 

[Aquanero]

It could also be a symptom of internal parasites. Most likly it's a gram-negative bacterial infection (this is usually the case). If the water changes and salt doesn't solve the problem Kanamycin or Tetracycline will. If it's IPs Prazi or Metro would be the way to go.

 

[peathenster]

Pete - typically cloudy eyes & burnt fins are indeed caused by free ammonia. If the fish are acclimatized improperly (such as a drip system to the bag, and/or floating the bags) the toxic effect of ammonia becomes even more severe. Seen this thousands of times over the years with fish being imported and where ammonia levels in the bag water were high.

I'm not sitting in front of your tanks with all of the parameters at hand, so I honestly have no idea what's taken place in your tanks in the past. Fair enough?

Sure. Although 1) the one thing I don't have in my tanks is ammonia and 2) it does not explain pH crashes causing fish death, or what happened to my discus friend.

The shipping/acclimation problem I had before was not due to ammonia poisoning during shipping. Fish were fine when they arrived. It's after I put them in the tank that they had problems. Again, never had this problem again when I matched pH to the water they came from. You'd think that, had there been any ammonia problem, I would not have fixed it by bumping up pH. If anything, ammonia would have been more toxic at higher pH.

My latest pH crash happened yesterday. A few Rio Tapajos fish died between dinner time and the time I went to bed last night, although a few Rio Negro fish in that tank were perfectly fine. Not so distant past. I tested water - no ammonia. And you don't have to sit in front of my tanks. If you don't believe I can handle ammonia in my tanks, we don't have to have this conversation at all.

What I do know is that in the vast majority of cases, a change in pH will seldom cause any harm to a fish (short or long term), and almost never cause death.

I don't know what evidence you have for this. I've heard enough horrible stories from plant people to know this is not true. Lights off, CO2 diffuser keeps going, pH drops, dead fish the next morning. Oh btw, it's not the CO2 that kills the fish. And again, there's my poor discus friend.

In any event, this is easily testable. Add a few drops of HCl to a tank and see what happens. Almost tempting if it's not too cruel.

A drastic change in TDS on the other hand can. If you read the links that I posted it should also be clear as to why an increase in TDS is not nearly as life threatening to a fish, as a sudden decrease.

It's all about osmotic balance. So in your example of adding large amounts of salt, within minutes, it will cause an imbalance in the fish, and some stress, but it will be in the form of dehydration, which most freshwater fish can adjust to. This is why most people will suggest that one adds salt gradually over time, and not all in one big dump.

Go the opposite direction, and the fish overhydrates, and if it happens too rapidly the cells burst, which is what causes the "shock", and sometimes death.

The science on all of this is pretty clear, I don't think that there's any debate as to how fish osmoregulate, in freshwater, or salt.

I do things a bit differently than what people "suggest". I'm not the patient kind and have always added salt in one big lump. And, to your overhydration argument, I do water changes a little differently too - I always drain water to the point that fish are pretty much lying on their side, then refill with tap water and prime (learned it from Ryan). In the case of my discus tank, that's about 27" out of the 30", or 90%. I don't decrease salt gradually. If I think the salting is done, I don't add a grain after water changes. In other words, that's a 10x decrease of TDS in minutes. Never, ever, had any fish showing any sign of stress. No cloudy eye.

So you are suggesting a sudden increase in TDS is unlikely to be the OP's problem. And, if a sudden decrease in TDS is causing the OP's problem, the change would have to be MUCH MORE DRASTIC than from 1lb 10oz salt per 100g to virtually no salt. Hard for me to imagine (almost impossible actually), but that's precisely why I asked the OP to find out water parameters at the shop and in his tank.

Believe me, I understand the "science". But if it's inconsistent with experimental observations, what good is this "science"? Is it not the very definition of "myth"?