Re: Calcium

peter.unmack at ASU.Edu
Sun, 02 Jun 1996 11:25:46 -0700 (MST)

On Sun, 2 Jun 1996, Roy Hunter wrote:

> less than 17.9 ppm. I do use ro water with addition of "normal" water to achieve
> a 100 ppm base, some some fish do fine, others do not therefore the block goes

Wanna provide some names on fishes you feel don't do well in 100ppm? No,
I don't want phone numbers, just the names.... :-) The reason that I'm
asking is to see if there is a correlation between hardness in the wild
habitat vs aquarium results. If there is no relationship between wild
hardness and aquarium hardness we may be able to get an idea of whether
or not calcium is the limiting problem. We may well be blaming the wrong
thing.

> in. It could be possible that in certain situations the calcium could be
> consumed as fast as it becomes available from the shell grit but when you are
> dealing with the numbers of fish as I do in one fry tank the coral/shell grit
> just doesnt cut it. I typically raise between 30 and 150 fish in a ten gallon
> tank to the size of 2.5 cm or 1 inch. With the numerous water changes that are
> required for this quanity and the load on the calcium, it is depleated so

Colin Brumley and I would probably raise similar numbers in a 50 litre
tank. We would add a good tablespoon of shell grit and once we began
feeding brine shrimp (end of first week) we would begin water changes.
Once fish reached about a centimeter or two we would move them to a larger
tank. Colin used to add some salt and I think magnesium sulphate. Water
out of the tap was probably 20ppm and pH ~7.2-5. We mostly raised NG fish
(about 12 species or so) and never had any deformities except one small
batch of M. monticola had funny messed up scales.

> However, I have a suspicion that the hardness isnt allways the
> culprit, I do not yet know what or where to look for

I've not really seen, nor looked for info on sex ratios. A few aquarists
from time to time observe this but don't often figure it out. Other
factors such as temperature or pH have been shown for other creatures and
it probably applies to some fish too.

> for my Yank friend Mr. Unmack :-) )

Not on your life sunny boy. You'll never catch me being a Yank. :-)

> These observations are purely my own and any objections call 1-800-LACTOSE ;-)

I tried but it was engaged....

Tootles

Peter Unmack