Upcoming Water Charges

Hi All,

I am just linking in to see what other members who are looking to keep their tanks beyond the introduction of water charges have planned.

I keep Discus and obviously need to change a lot of water. I'd love to keep my tank but I have some questions:

Would I be better off moving on the Discus and keeping Angelfish? Less amount of water to be changed each week?

I hear some stores offer free water weekly. Whats the position here? Will this be still available come next year?

I'd be interested to hear what you fellow fishkeepers plan for the future.

Cheers

For me..... nothing going to change!
If your into rallying you dont switch away from petrol cause the price goes up
If your into fishing you dont stop cause the license fee increases

Why change the fish and fish habbits youve built up and cared for and possibly bread from fry right thru juviniles to full adult hood and have been thinking of breeding again, just cause you have to pay for water???
Collect rain water, mix with tap water, river water, lake water whatever you have to do to keep your hobby going!
Dont let the government and their lack of foresight ruin what you enjoy!

Here's a fun fact: if million litres of water leaves the reservoir heading for us..... less than half makes it too the destination! (Rant beginning) And thats deemed to be an acceptable loss!!!!!
An absolute friggin disgrace if ya ask me!!!
The government are charging us cause they sat back on their h***s and let the water network become decreped and out of date!!!
So it looses alot....... and we have to pay for that???? Come on!!!!!!!!!(rant over.... please accept my apologies)

what about organic aqua if water changes become expensive

Totally agree with hammie ! I switched from 180lt tank to 400lt tanks plus sump ... I love the hobby and ready to take the hit !

I would say that the water changes in a discus tank depends strongly in the age of the discus itself. I mean:

if you are rising discus of 5-6 cm, the higher the amount and the periodicity of the change much better for the discus. Professional breeders usually made two changes every day of almost 100% of water. Other breeders do a continuous water change, so at every moment fresh water is going into the aquarium.
Friends of mine have obtained the best results by changing 50% of water every single day during the first 6 months of discus' life. Also, they feed the dicus six or seven times a day. The discus are growth in naked tanks, with no plants nor decoration. Just water and glass.

WHen I was keeping discus larger than 10 cm, I used to make a great water change (80%) every weekend. It was more than enough to keep growing and healthy discus.

The reason is because younger discus has a very high growing rate, and the lowest level of nitrogenated compounds (amonium, nitrite and nitrate) are very harmfull for their organisms. As the discus get older, the growing rate decreases; so nitrogenated compounds has not a remarkable effect (always under reasonable levels).

Summarizing: change as much water as you can.

Regards

I use 80% rainwater in all my tanks,
Supplemented with 20% tap water
I don't keep discus,but I do change my water alot,
As in I'm going through 150/200liters weekly
I have gotten in to rainwater long before the charges ever came in,
I didn't do it for money rather the breeding benefits of rainwater
Although the fact that my fish keeping won't be lining Irish waters pockets that much is a bonus!
Any way I would definitely encourage anyone to use rainwater for both reasons

does anyone know how much the water is going to cost?
as a discus keeper who changes over 500 litres daily or every couple of days i worry
sticking to the hobby is fine but that depends on how many tanks you have (10 running right now).
I have very few little ones left so i should be in the adulthood of my fish by the time the charges appear so it will be less changes, but I fear that the fish used to such frequent WC's will start feeling the hit.
Another thread was discussing the use of rainwater: need to get a refresher on this but bottom line is i am not sure it was perfect. `i'd have to line up 10 barrels on my balcony and that wont be possible.

hammie wrote:

For me..... nothing going to change!
If your into rallying you dont switch away from petrol cause the price goes up
If your into fishing you dont stop cause the license fee increases

Why change the fish and fish habbits youve built up and cared for and possibly bread from fry right thru juviniles to full adult hood and have been thinking of breeding again, just cause you have to pay for water???
Collect rain water, mix with tap water, river water, lake water whatever you have to do to keep your hobby going!
Dont let the government and their lack of foresight ruin what you enjoy!

Here's a fun fact: if million litres of water leaves the reservoir heading for us..... less than half makes it too the destination! (Rant beginning) And thats deemed to be an acceptable loss!!!!!
An absolute friggin disgrace if ya ask me!!!
The government are charging us cause they sat back on their h***s and let the water network become decreped and out of date!!!
So it looses alot....... and we have to pay for that???? Come on!!!!!!!!!(rant over.... please accept my apologies)

it is an absolute disgrace: charging for water in Ireland is like countries in the deserts charging you for sand. That reflects poorly on the various governing bodies who have let it get this way, on the corrupt ones who will fill their pockets with that (sure there are some) and ultimately on the people who vote for these inepts as all these people get there and get to take these idiotic decisions because someone votes for them and let them do it. That is my rant for the day. A good guillotine could come in handy

Im using organic aqua in a very large tank for over 3 years now. Its working for me. Water changes once a month. The hidden cost of water changes is not the water but the cost of heating the water especially with discus that need high temperature.
How many countries in the world can you go to your kitchen tap and drink a glass of cold clean water. Some think that's worth paying for.

I'm on board with miami, I go though about 4 to 5 hundred liters per week.

But the main cost is the flat rate per year of 250 to 500 what ever its going t be.

The rest is something like 2.50 per metric meter.

paulv wrote:

Im using organic aqua in a very large tank for over 3 years now. Its working for me. Water changes once a month. The hidden cost of water changes is not the water but the cost of heating the water especially with discus that need high temperature.
How many countries in the world can you go to your kitchen tap and drink a glass of cold clean water. Some think that's worth paying for.

Hi Paul,
Would the organic aqua be good for Discus? I have heard about it a few times but not sure how this can be a miracle cure. Usually when things sound too good to be true i take it they probably are.
As far as heating the water I am thinking that if you "Drip" into the thank you can avoid the heaters, but a drip forces you to use much more water than a standard water change.
As far as paying for drinkable water, well i have a few thoughts about this and more rants but I think I would be deviating the subject of the thread. Only thing i leave in the interest of the public is a question that I have and do not have the answer to: if the pipe system is like swiss cheese: I would assume that leaves plenty of opportunities for that drinkable water to get contaminated on the way to my tap? (I never drink tap water.)

I had read a thread about rain water that was very interesting but i cant find it.
In any case what I remember is it triggered a question:
Isn't it possible to recycle and re-filter our tanks waste water? perhaps by circulating it in heavily planted planters. I havent touched my RCS tank in 10 weeks (heavily planted) - RCS are thriving, water crystal clear, only thing I do is top off the evaporated water .

Miami,
I dont believe that there is much chance of contamination due to pressures involved etc. (open to correction however if my theory "doesnt hold water")
The pipes run at around 5 bar pressure (depending on the diameter etc) (example of a 600mm pipe runs anything up to 10bar peak)
this means that with the external pressure being much lower than internal there is little to no opertunity for contaminants to permiate inwards.

I drink tap water without fear or worry however I prefer to have water filtered and chilled before drinking (just for the sake of being more refreshing)

our water arrives at out house at 75psi

Not exactly, The mains is running at that in the larger pipes, however as the pipes are reduced to the domestic supply the water goes thru a number of valves and reducers to bring the pressure down to a more managable pressure.....

bear in mind that a pressure washer will work at anything from about 7 - 11 bar (101 psi +) for a cheap one.....
I wouldnt be putting my hand in a direct stream from a pressure washer

I'm not guessing here I have a RO unit with a psi gauge and connected directly to the main
its 75psi

Is the feed to the ro unit the same size as the main its T'd off? Or a smaller diameter?

Not doubting you! just that conflicts any information the council has ever given me in the past! So am interested to get more info!
If the pipe was a smaller diameter to the ro unit then this would certainly raise the pressure slightly! Think about that happens if you half block a hose with your thumb (the pressure increases)

My area is has crazy pressure because its in a dipped part - was talking to a local plumper about it before.
The RO is feed from mains via a 1/4 tube connector.
pressure is pressure no matter the size of the tube, all that changes is the amount that is allowed to flow out.

Miamiheat wrote:

I had read a thread about rain water that was very interesting but i cant find it.
In any case what I remember is it triggered a question:
Isn't it possible to recycle and re-filter our tanks waste water? perhaps by circulating it in heavily planted planters. I havent touched my RCS tank in 10 weeks (heavily planted) - RCS are thriving, water crystal clear, only thing I do is top off the evaporated water .

anyone has any idea regarding this?

Miami.
all my fish are big mature cat fish,arowana, oscars and silver dollars, so maybe more tolerate of water chemistry. I cant say how discus will do with organic aqua, its not a miracle cure just differdnt way of running a tank. I change water every 4 to 5 weeks but only feed my fish every 3 days.
Harvesting rain water seems popular method to save piped water. Properly treated I see no reason why it cant be used for aquariums.

As for charges I heard it will be in the region of 1c per litre so 500ltrs will be a fiver, not much to worry about i think, and their is talk of making it cheaper but we'll have to wait and see, but I think it's over rated all the worries about it, the past government has put us in worse situations it's now time to concentrate on who you really want to run our country so more of this crap doesn't keep happening in our future


Taxing the air is next and we will all wear a special device totalling the amount of breaths we take

Miamiheat wrote:

I had read a thread about rain water that was very interesting but i cant find it.
In any case what I remember is it triggered a question:
Isn't it possible to recycle and re-filter our tanks waste water? perhaps by circulating it in heavily planted planters. I havent touched my RCS tank in 10 weeks (heavily planted) - RCS are thriving, water crystal clear, only thing I do is top off the evaporated water .

Rain water is a good option but collects impurities from the air (exhaust fumes etc...) so it needs to filtered through carbon before use.
Also it's best to add minerals to buffer the water.

It is not recommended to run a tank without water changes. I did one for about two years and found the following:
The water became very acidic. All the buffers were used up and the PH dropped below 4. KH-0 GH-0.
With such a low PH the filter bacteria seemed to be non existent and I would get a lot of low level Ammonia spikes. The plants seemed to do most of the filtration.
I just kept some Aphyosemion bivitattum in the tank and wouldn't try it with big or delicate fish.

Organic Aqua works fine. I use it on fish more delicate than Discus. But I recommend changing water every 3 weeks when using very soft water.

Chemical and good mechanical filtration could possibly be used instead of water changes but would be more expensive.