Water Quality...What is PERFECT supposed to mean?

This is maybe an opening for a debate, but is also maybe a little semi-rant.

What is 'Perfect' when that is given as the answer to "what is your pH?".

Now...from a debate point of view the thread question will have to go into the realms of "it depends on the species of fish" etc etc

But, and this could be a concern of mine, it is when someone clearly is having problems in a tank and asks for suggestion, and when asked what the parameters are.....the reply comes back as "they are perfect" (yet the tank may have a mix of guppies, mollies, rams and cardinals !!).

Is this 'perfect' answer a symptom of something supplied with Test Kits?
is it a mis-understanding of what is perfect?
is it a carry-on habit when, say, an LFS does the initial tests and answers "the water is perfect".

Do these nondescript answers hold back fish-keeping?

I know what I think, bit I wonder what experienced, or skilled, or experienced and skilled, or new-comer fish keepers think.

ian

seriously ian, I'm laughing at this in one way after our chat today!in another more acurate way It annoys me so much.someone loses a fish and you ask them for their perams and they say "perfect" what in gods name is that?I cry.

Perfect when the Fish thrive, Imperfect when they languish and die...

I remember my lecturer in College telling me that a perfect Houseplant was one that died slowly!!

Not exactly pertinent to the Thread but interesting to me none the less.

Kev.

I think I have to agree with stretnik on this one. 'PERFECT' is an illusion!!! As soon as one acheives 'perfection', it's not long before someone else comes up with something better.

As the yanks say, 'If it aint broke, dont fix it'

i think the PERFECT people refer to is within acceptable perameters for the species being kept, yep it is an illusion we fool ourselves into trying to attain, i think with expierence and observation of your stock you will see when fish are not well, its the method i now trust even more than test kits, as you will never have PERFECT water for any species you keep as we keep our stock in a small volume of water in comparsion to what they would have in the wild and will never be able to introduce all the minerals etc that are in the wild river / lakes they come from so all we can do is our best to keep them happy

Is it a bit like the washing instructions on some expensive wonder-wash-woolen clothes.....the label says HOT the fabric says NOT.

I've heard similar things from one of my lads and his car: the car breaks down on the motorway, I'm called out. I ask did about petrol, oil, spark-plugs, and all the usual things about a broken-down car and when he last checked them.
And.....the reply I get, despite standing by a car that won't budge one bit is "...but everything is perfect Da....".
I stand there wondering if I have to solve some unknown mystery of the universe, ie how a car can not start yet is still 'perfect' (roll my eyes to the sky).
OR if I have to come up with a suggestion that does not address the fact that I know he hadn't checked the car ever, never checked the oil, and simply pelted a sports car down the motorway with a mobile phone videoing the speedo (the YouTube video I saw afterwards happened to show the oil-warning light flashing madly in the video....yet it was ignored....probably because he knew the oil was 'perfect').


There's a fish-related analogy there.

ian

Coming from a relatively new fishkeepers point of view I suppose when you first take up the hobby it is drilled into you that ammonia, nitrites and nitrates have to be at an acceptable level. If a problem is posted then the first thing you are asked is what the levels of the above are. This gives the illusion that once the above criteria are met, then everything is 'perfect'. Obviously this is not the case. They are a very important part of the picture but definitely not the full picture.

So I suppose in response to your question Ian, it is a misunderstanding of what 'perfect' is. It may be in part down to LFS giving the response that the water is perfect but are they performing a full test of the water?

I am not sure if it is holding back the hobby of fishkeeping as a whole, but I definitely think this misunderstanding is holding back fishkeepers as individuals.

Edit - I may have misread your question as well Ian, if it was pH specific. I was generalising the 'perfect' water idea. If it was I apologise and ignore everything I said!!

Good reply PompeyBill.

I was not just thinking pH....that was an example, and an especially good one when someone has mollies, guppies, cardinal tetras all in the same tank and the reply is 'pH is perfect'. If you see what I mean.

Anything 'perfect' in general really.

I would say that such default terms will not hold the hobby back (unless it gets embroiled in a general myth culture) , but it doesn't help an individual trying to get to grips with something that has gone wrong.

I'm not on about the highly technical review of things either.

ian

I think we have all been guilty at some stage of saying that the parameters are perfect or FINE.
I would imagine in most cases its actually another way of saying I havent a notion or I am now to embarrased because I didnt check the obvious.
Lets face it we have all lost fish and couldnt understand why.(untill someone asked us the obvious what are the ph/nitrate/nitrite/amonia parameters)
If someone is using test strips they come with little smiley faces indicating either "ok" "perfect" or "water change".
These strips are inaccurate and misleading but any novice and I include myself in this learn the hard way not to trust the strips.
Just my tuppence worth

Perfect = "Completely suited for a particular purpose or situation", so this would lead me to believe when people quote the parameters of the fish tank/aquarium as perfect, it suggest's to me from such a statement that they have checked all the parameters of the tank , they are well within range required for the ability to sustain life in said Tank. But the real question that we should be asking have people the ability or have they actually conducted an extensive study into the testing and stability of the the tank environment and have they got such equipment to conduct such a study to deem the parameters as perfect? As we all know parameters in the tank change throughout the course of the day more Oxygen can be present Nitrates, Carbon Dioxide etc etc etc at different intervals throughout the day, one example I can give from experience is before lights on in a very well established planted tank I had I would dose with alot of nitrates upto 50ppm before lights on then just before lights out at first interval nitrates would be 0ppm also O2 levels would rise naturally enough during photosynthesis and pH would drop slightly during lights off just a brief summary to give an idea where I'm going with this, so is it possible for parameters to be perfect? as the dictionary describes also as " Being without defect or blemish", is it possible for an enclosed environment such as an aquarium to be without defect or blemish when compared to natural conditions?
Should perfect be used to describe parameters as the thread suggests , my belief is NO! its just not possible maybe to state within "normal acceptable limits for the kept species" is an "Acceptable Compromise"

@Zoom....I'm in agreement with you on that, and how many people check the redox, conductivity, electrical potentials, pH, and oxygen in every part of the tank?
Now, it would be pretty silly to do so from a reasonably practicable point of view....but in reality, if one has, say, creatures living at an interface (eg anchored inverts in a marine tank) then water parameters within that interface need to be acceptable. Interface chemistry is extremely complex.....so I certainly wouldn't be expecting someone to test it, but in such a case they would also not know if their conditions were "perfect" or not. (yep, I am getting down to the pedantic level a bit there....just for the hell of it)

Pat wrote:

I think we have all been guilty at some stage of saying that the parameters are perfect or FINE.
I would imagine in most cases its actually another way of saying I havent a notion or I am now to embarrased because I didnt check the obvious.
Lets face it we have all lost fish and couldnt understand why.(untill someone asked us the obvious what are the ph/nitrate/nitrite/amonia parameters)
If someone is using test strips they come with little smiley faces indicating either "ok" "perfect" or "water change".
These strips are inaccurate and misleading but any novice and I include myself in this learn the hard way not to trust the strips.
Just my tuppence worth

@Pat.....you must have read my mind..... I also think that when the answer "perfect" comes back it is often a great cop-out for having not actually tested something (or anything).
Does that make me sound suspicious?
I guess, though, that if we turn around and say to someone we don't believe that you tested anything at all then that wouldn't make one very popular (in-person or on-line).

If I were to go to my doctor (which I don't anyway), he would instantly ask how many cigarettes I smoke.....I would tell him 10 a day on occasional days (to which he would probably start tutting anyway)..... do you really think I'd tell him the truth and be nagged at, yet I'd still want a diagnosis of what is wrong?

ian

Ian you are spot on we wouldnt be popular but to the next person who says they have the perfect parameters I have two questions
1 then why are the fish dying?
2 If they are perfect then please come around to my house and fix my tanks pleeeeeeeeease cause mine aint

Personally speaking, if you have to go beyond things like cycling the Aquarium properly, monitoring Ammonia, Nitrates, Nitrites, Water changes , Quarantining and ph, it becomes more of a drudge than a hobby, thereafter , people start panicking, buying all sorts of uneccessary crap that ends up ripping a hole in their Pockets and adding to the difficulty of Fish Keeping. Things like Ph adjusting chemicals are nothing more than alchemy that leads to unstable Aquaria and frustration to the Hobbyist. I and many guys/Girls, both novices and Silverbacks, have made classic mistakes like adding new Fish without quarantining etc... Let me just repeat something I heard some while back....................

WE ARE KEEPERS OF WATER NOT OF FISH ! Keep up regular Water changes, make sure that there is adequate water movement throughout the Tank and keep your stock numbers low and you won't go far wrong.

Kev.

Dont want to hijack the thread but how do you know when an external filter has cycled properly.
I am cycling a JBL e900 for 5 weeks now in an established tank with the intention of doing away with my under gravel filter. If I disconnect the undergravel too early I risk losing fish.

In short Pat..... either use a test kit to find out your Water's condition or take about 250 ml to a local LFS and they'll happily do it for you.

Kev.

@Pat.....that is a good question by the way and is also very relevant to the topic here.
We often hear recommendations of (and we are all guilty of it at times) saying 'make sure the tank is cycled'...when really giving that as an answer is a bit bland really, and is about as useful as asking someone to get a nice wine that I like. !

I think that the world of many topics has started to become more and more of a 'specification-based' world.....
but the problem of that is that specifications are quantities and not qualities.

Take a car.....people look at the spec to determine if it is any good or not (???...but I want to drive a car, and not drive a paper brochure);
Take wine......there is a 'wine-tasting' believe that you can buy a wine based upon year or soil the grapes are grown on.....not so, if the wine tastes like crap then it is crap.

In fish keeping the water parameters are quantities......so we need to interpret them quantities and relate them to water quality.
On their own they are, as with a car spec or wine spec, just a guide as to the quality of the water.

Care also needs to be taken with specifications.....they can give a false sense of security.

Going back many years, test kits for aquarists were few and far between and the the variety of water parameter tests were quite limited.

Ammonia and nitrate testing are quite recent additions to common test kits.....so how did we cope before we had those water parameters thrown at us?

easy.....the advice was to have mature water, well aerated, and carry out regular partial water changes (ie address the quality part of water first even if we didn't know the quantity of the parameter).
Science, and I'm happy to go down that route of explaining the science, really came after to explain why those simple good-practice techniques worked.

I've said before that we don't need to understand the process of digestion to be able to eat a good nutritious dinner.
I do not read the nutrition advice and then eat on the label of baked beans can....I just eat the beans instead because they are a good quality and tasty food.

Cooking food is a good analogy.....when we start to cook, we try from the very onset to get it right.....because you can't take a cake out of the oven half-way through, test it for eggyness, and take out excess egg. The proof of a good cake is in the tasting....but it doesn't get to that stage by accident.

At heart, I am an olde-fashioned fish-keeper....and one of the key parameters that I use is to look at the fish each morning to see if they are in good health (unfortunately, you cant put a numeric value on that).

ian

Ian ,

Like you said I have always been told to have aged aerated water, but what is the real reason for this, I never knew and still dont to be honest know the real reason, I presume its to allow time for chemicals such as chlorine etc to be removed from the water and for the water to stabilise. But to be honest I dont know the real reasons.

Can anyone through light on this out of curiosity?

@Zoom.....if you ever manage to get hold of some of the older books on fish-keeping you'll notice that they do not tend to go on much about nitrogen cycles etc etc.

There are lots of reasons why aged and aerated water is good.

-in the days of chlorine being added, the aeration would help drive out the chlorine....but it does nothing if chloramines are added to the domestic water supply.

- aeraton will help speed up stabilisation of freshly drawn water.

- In the tank....aeration does not really do much to pump oxygen into the water, but what it does do is much more important:
it will increase surface area to allow gases to exchange (oxygen, carbon dioxide etc);
it will help with gaseous removal of ammonia gas by agitation and increased surface area;
it will help prevent water becoming stagnant and help prevent reduce the possibility of methane and sulphurous gases in the tank;
the additional oxygen allowed into the tank will aid the vital need for ammonia oxidising bacteria to rid ammonia;
and more.

Now, the mature aged water aspect is to do with stabilising the water, but more importantly it is really addressing the nitrogen cycle side of things (even in the days when when you did not see this talk about, it was still being addressed by fish-keepers under 'new-tank syndrome etc).

Ammonia is a rapid killer of fish, yet even a slightly aged and aerated water will tend to have sufficient ammonia oxidising bacteria to cope with a lightly stocked tank (hence why the old method of gradually introducing the complete stock of fish was very important).

The nitrite oxidising bacteria do, however, take much longer to build up to a usable level and have to have a stable structure (eg gravel) with oxygenated water upon which to grow....and it was with the development of undergravel filtration that suddenly fish-keeping went into hyper-drive (U/G filtration is the single most important development in fish-keeping in my mind by the way).
Hence, very mature water was a key point historically in fish keeping (but not old stale water by the way).

Historically, looking at some of the old books, you'll notice a large emphasis on using very aged mature water for some species of fish yet not overly emphasised for others.
The logic was good.....the species required very aged mature water with regular partial water changes (in the 'old book' days) are those that we know will not really tolerate unstable water, or cannot cope with ammonia or nitrite very well at all, or even ones where their diet requires some small picking from scum on the side of rocks.

If you did an experiment (but don't).....have 2 tanks.....place a few fish in each one. In one tank have an air-stone, and in the other have nothing other than the fish. Use fresh dechlorinated water in both tanks.
Feed the fish as normal.
You'll notice within a very very short space of time that the fish with no aeration are having serious problems, yet the ones with aeration (unless you go over the top with stocking or feeding) will cope much better.
Now...don't actually do that experiment....there is no need as many people have done it (but not part of an experiment).
Even if the fish don't die, there is long-term damage by the rapid ammonia build up.

ian

Thanks Ian .

Ok lads thanks for the replies. Now let me see if I am right in what I think you are saying.
Keep doing the water changes and disconnect the under gravel and watch the fish.
The tank is up about 8 months since I did a big job on it and the under gravel is doing a good job but I want to grow plants. The two filters are running in tandem for 4-5 weeks.
Should I do a complete clean up of the gravel with the syphon or leave it a couple of days in case I have to restart the undergravel system if the fish start showing signs of tress?

On the mature water subject, for years in the eighties we used to use dechlorinator on the water and leave it stand in drums in the shed for a week.
I have slightly changed this in that I buy ro water from the shop and let it bounce around the back of the van for a week to agitate the chlorine etc out of it.
My old man was a stickler for water tests and kept an bred all sorts of fish very succesfully.
We have the old books at home including years of subscriptions to PFK
Things have changed so much between then and re taking up the hobby that I am now a complete novice all over again.

perfect? how many of us know how "perfect" the conditions are in there natural habitat, if we were to test them conditions would they stay exactly the same or would they vary?. trying for perfection would result in major heartbreak