Picked these guys up last week absolutely stunning.
3 spot geophagus
- Thread starter tony tropical
- Start date
These are young Satanoperca daemon. Beautiful fish, but also very prone to HITH if you don’t keep them in soft water with a pH below neutral.
If your water has an even moderate conductivity, I'd set up a large rainwater catchment system to dilute the tap water don.
If your water has an even moderate conductivity, I'd set up a large rainwater catchment system to dilute the tap water don.
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Agree with this, their natural water has a pH between 4.5 to 5.5, with no measurable hardness, and are tannin infused to the point of the color of tea.
If your tap water has even moderate conductivity, I'd set up a large rain water catchment system, to mix during water changes.
Looks like you're in the UK, so a good possibility for success.
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Being from Hamilton Ontario, this is not surprising, you probably get Great Lakes water, which is generally hard (high conductivity), and high in pH.
All the parameters that are over the top for black water species.
And if you are not doing large enough water changes to reduce nitrate to below 5, those nitrates in combination with the conductivity provides perfect conditions for bacteria to grow, these black water Geo's have not evolved resistance to.
My water source in Wisconsin was Lake Michigan, similarly hard, high conductivity water, soI had to do 30%-40% water changes every other day to keep nitrate at a low enough level, to avoid HLLE, and collect leaves to soak for the anti bacterial tannins added during water changes.
Neutral of higher pH endemic Geophagines (like those from west of the Andes), or Gymnogeophagus from Brazil or the other countries south of Brazil did much better in my type water.
For the black water types, an RO unit could also a positive addition.
