Slight change needed

[newshound]

Hey all
I was looking for a drawing that someone did of an ideal tank design (great drawing BTW) for loaches and noticed that whoever wrote the artical wrote this--
"I don’t really intend on going into how much, how often, what water treatments should be used, etc, as I’ll be here for a month of Sundays, and I’ll only be repeating what most books, magazine articles and experts have already stated. What works for me is a 25% change every fortnight, with tapwater that has been heavily aerated for at least 2 days, and brought up to tank temperature prior to the change. What I don’t really find necessary is reverse osmosis, adding trace elements, filtering over peat, water softening pillows, dechlorinators, products containing aloe vera, etc. "
I agree with some of it but the final part about dechlorinators is off the mark IMO.
When I moved to Sault Ste. Marie I noticed when ever I did water changes my loaches would begin flashing for days. I was using a cheap water conditioner (called aqua plus I think) and leaving the water to sit out for at least 4 days. This never happened in the town I moved from.
I found out that it is because the Sault uses Chloromine in its water and that Aqua Plus doesn't not fix this problem in any concrete way. And chloromine doesn't disipate into the air like chlorine does. Once I switched to Prime water conditioner all the flashing after water changes ceased to occur. Better yet even though it was $$$$ to buy a bottle of Prime it lasted way longer than Aqua Plus because one needs so little of Prime to condition the water.
link to web content--
http://www.loaches.com/almanac/environment.html

[Graeme Robson]

http://www.loaches.com/almanac/index.html

Number 2, under the name of 'Writers' and many to find.

[Martin Thoene]

Ok, the drawing is one that I "aquired" from a very old, but very awesome paperback book I've owned for years. For the yet to be published Loach Book, I've done original tank designs drawn in a similar style.

The text I believe was by Steve Burton, the collator of all the info in the Almanac. I guess Steve was talking from the perspective of the water in deepest darkest Maidstone area of Kent, England back in '99 or whenever the Loach Almanac was written.
Steve was from the same school of thought as me...."If God intended me to be a chemist, I wouldn't be keeping fish". In other words, much like the text of the Almanac reads, Steve (and I) keep fish more by observation and accumulated skill than relying on what some funky liquids tell us.

Certainly, I kept fish in England between 1964 and 2001 without ever using water conditioner or owning more than a pH test kit....and that I only bought in around '98.

Times change though. Water across the world differs, as does its treatment to make it acceptably "pottable" in given countries. Chloromine was not used years ago, now it's relatively common.

Best to treat it.....I do now in Toronto.

Martin.

[Kat]

Hi, what does 'flashing' mean please?

[libingboy]

flashing is when the fish suddenly "rubs" its body against a surface, kinda like scratching an itch, except that its not a steady back and forth motion... imagine that theres a band-aid on the body of the fish and the fish attempts to rip off the band aid by snagging the band aid against a surface of some sort

[Kat]

Thanks,
that is interesting - is this a kind of spasm? Why does the chloramine make them do this?
Kathryn

[TammyLiz]

Kat, it isn't a spasm, they do it on purpose to try to scratch their itches. The chlorine or chloramine irritates their skin so they try to scratch. They'll do it if they have an external parasite like ich, also, to try to rub it off. Usually you'll see them swimming along as usual, then all of a sudden they dart over on their side very quickly, rubbing on the gravel. Then swim along as usual and repeat. They call it flashing because it is very quick. Bam! Bam! They throw themselves around in misery. Not a good thing. And, well, sort of hard to explain. You'd know if you saw your fish doing it. But it can be easy to miss since it is so fast.

[Kat]

Thanks,
That is very useful, and I will be sure to know now, should it ever occur!
Many thanks,
Kathryn