Too much water movement for tetras?

[Victor Martinez]

I have a 20g long heavily planted tank in which I keep several species
of shrimp. I would like to add some fish and the only ones I can think
of that would not eat my shrimp are small tetras (neons, etc.). The tank
has an Eclipse hood, so the filter output generates quite a bit of water
flow. Would a school of neons or cardinals be ok with the water current?
Any other ideas for small non-shrimp-eating fish? :)

--
Victor M. Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam here:
Email me here:

[Bill Stock]

"Victor Martinez" > wrote in message
...
>I have a 20g long heavily planted tank in which I keep several species of
>shrimp. I would like to add some fish and the only ones I can think of that
>would not eat my shrimp are small tetras (neons, etc.). The tank has an
>Eclipse hood, so the filter output generates quite a bit of water flow.
>Would a school of neons or cardinals be ok with the water current?
> Any other ideas for small non-shrimp-eating fish? :)
>
> --
> Victor M. Martinez
> Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
> Send your spam here:
> Email me here:

I've got a 55 g with an AquaClear 500 and two Penguin 660Rs running the RUGF
and the Cardinal Tetras don't seem to mind. I think they get more action
from the Barbs whizzing by, so everything else is good with them. Very
mellow fish.

[Eric]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 21:16:46 -0500, Victor Martinez wrote
(in article >):

> I have a 20g long heavily planted tank in which I keep several species
> of shrimp. I would like to add some fish and the only ones I can think
> of that would not eat my shrimp are small tetras (neons, etc.). The tank
> has an Eclipse hood, so the filter output generates quite a bit of water
> flow. Would a school of neons or cardinals be ok with the water current?
> Any other ideas for small non-shrimp-eating fish? :)

White Clouds! They're my answer to everything. Cheap too.

Plus, I note that you are in the Austin area. If your tap water comes from
wells rather than the Colorado, it's going to have a very high pH. Neons
aren't gonna like that.


-E

[Mean_Chlorine]

Thusly Victor Martinez > Spake Unto All:

>flow. Would a school of neons or cardinals be ok with the water current?

Yes. No problem whatsoever.
Except with pipefish, angelfish, and some long finned fish which've
basically had their ability to swim bred out of them (ie fancy
goldfish and similar abominations) you basically never have to worry
about water current. I routinely have 10x tank volume turnover per
hour, and I've yet to see a fish fail to handle it.

>Any other ideas for small non-shrimp-eating fish? :)

Most smaller tetras, smaller barbs (like cherry barb, NOT tiger barb
though), all rasboras and danios, lots of suckermouth catfish,
platies, guppies, white-cloud-mountain minnows...
Even some small cichlids if you wish, notably rams.

[Victor Martinez]

Eric wrote:
> Plus, I note that you are in the Austin area. If your tap water comes from
> wells rather than the Colorado, it's going to have a very high pH. Neons
> aren't gonna like that.

I get city water, so that's not an issue. My tank's pH is always below 7.

--
Victor M. Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam here:
Email me here:

[Mean_Chlorine]

Thusly Victor Martinez > Spake Unto All:

>Eric wrote:
>> Plus, I note that you are in the Austin area. If your tap water comes from
>> wells rather than the Colorado, it's going to have a very high pH. Neons
>> aren't gonna like that.
>
>I get city water, so that's not an issue. My tank's pH is always below 7.

And in any case neons don't give a toss about pH. I kept neons in
water that's liquid limestone & pH 8.3 for years. They even spawned,
but the eggs don't fertilize at that pH - the adult fish, however,
don't care at all.

[Bill Stock]

"Mean_Chlorine" > wrote in message
...
> Thusly Victor Martinez > Spake Unto All:
>
>>Eric wrote:
>>> Plus, I note that you are in the Austin area. If your tap water comes
>>> from
>>> wells rather than the Colorado, it's going to have a very high pH.
>>> Neons
>>> aren't gonna like that.
>>
>>I get city water, so that's not an issue. My tank's pH is always below 7.
>
> And in any case neons don't give a toss about pH. I kept neons in
> water that's liquid limestone & pH 8.3 for years. They even spawned,
> but the eggs don't fertilize at that pH - the adult fish, however,
> don't care at all.
>

My Cardinals started out in 8.4 water before I got the CO2 going. Didn't
seem to care about 8.4 or the ride to 7.1.

[Eric]

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 12:12:46 -0500, Mean_Chlorine wrote
(in article >):

> Thusly Victor Martinez > Spake Unto All:
>
>> Eric wrote:
>>> Plus, I note that you are in the Austin area. If your tap water comes from
>>> wells rather than the Colorado, it's going to have a very high pH. Neons
>>> aren't gonna like that.
>>
>> I get city water, so that's not an issue. My tank's pH is always below 7.
>
> And in any case neons don't give a toss about pH. I kept neons in
> water that's liquid limestone & pH 8.3 for years. They even spawned,
> but the eggs don't fertilize at that pH - the adult fish, however,
> don't care at all.

I know people who keep neons in 8 pH water too. I was led to believe by a
friend who used to work in the fish business that these fish were the
survivors of a rather brutal amount of fish loss in stores and that if one
were to buy neons at a store with neutral water and place them into Texas
liquid rock, the juvies that they sell at most stores would fare badly.

-E

[Gill Passman]

"Eric" > wrote in message
. sbcglobal.net...
> On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 12:12:46 -0500, Mean_Chlorine wrote
> (in article >):
>
> > Thusly Victor Martinez > Spake Unto All:
> >
> >> Eric wrote:
> >>> Plus, I note that you are in the Austin area. If your tap water comes
from
> >>> wells rather than the Colorado, it's going to have a very high pH.
Neons
> >>> aren't gonna like that.
> >>
> >> I get city water, so that's not an issue. My tank's pH is always below
7.
> >
> > And in any case neons don't give a toss about pH. I kept neons in
> > water that's liquid limestone & pH 8.3 for years. They even spawned,
> > but the eggs don't fertilize at that pH - the adult fish, however,
> > don't care at all.
>
> I know people who keep neons in 8 pH water too. I was led to believe by a
> friend who used to work in the fish business that these fish were the
> survivors of a rather brutal amount of fish loss in stores and that if one
> were to buy neons at a store with neutral water and place them into Texas
> liquid rock, the juvies that they sell at most stores would fare badly.
>
> -E
>
>
>
I keep Neons in hard water with a pH of 8 without any particular problems -
however this does match the water at the LFS.
Gill

[Mean_Chlorine]

Thusly Eric > Spake Unto All:

>I know people who keep neons in 8 pH water too. I was led to believe by a
>friend who used to work in the fish business that these fish were the
>survivors of a rather brutal amount of fish loss in stores and that if one
>were to buy neons at a store with neutral water and place them into Texas
>liquid rock, the juvies that they sell at most stores would fare badly.

Not really, it goes for all fish. Every single freshwater fish species
in the world does exactly as well at any pH in the range pH 6.5 - pH
8.5, regardless of what their home water is. There is zero difference
as far as adult fish are concerned. There IS difference when it comes
to spawning, as low conductivity and possibly low pH is a trigger for
spawning for some fish, and the egg membranes of some species may
become impermeable to the sperm, but for adult fish it does not matter
at all.

Not only that, but there exists no cause of death of fish called "pH
shock". If the water has the same temperature and salt content, you
can simply flip a fish from pH 6.5 to 8.5 without it even noticing.
When people talk of "pH shock", they really mean of either
conductivity shock (moving from a higher to a lower conductivity must
be done slow, or the fish will die) or ammonia poisoning (slightly
toxic ammonium turns to highly toxic ammonia as the pH rises above 7.5
- 8; this is what kills fish when they've been in the bag too long and
are put into a tank with high-ish pH).

pH is an important parameter, but not really for the health of adult
fish, except under very special circumstances (notably rising pH when
there's high ammonium levels). That pH really isn't particularly
important, and that the importance of pH is horribly exaggerated in
aquarist literature, is one of the best kept secrets in aquaristics.

Also the 6.5 - 8.5 zone is wide enough that you'll never get outside
it without seriously messing with tank chemistry, by, say, adding CO2
or dosing slaked lime into the tank (yes, some aquarists do).

However, to be fair pH is important to OTHER chemical reactions you
might be interested in (such as how much CO2 is available to your
plants) and conductivity (which IS an important parameter to fish
health) is usually roughly correlated to pH, at least in most natural
waters, so that pH can be used as a very rough indication of the much
harder to measure conductivity.

[Dr Engelbert Buxbaum]

Mean_Chlorine wrote:

> And in any case neons don't give a toss about pH. I kept neons in
> water that's liquid limestone & pH 8.3 for years. They even spawned,
> but the eggs don't fertilize at that pH - the adult fish, however,
> don't care at all.

How do you know that? Have you dissected them and looked at their
kidneys under the microscope? If you had, you'd have noticed the kidney
stones that comes from growing them in "liquid limestone".

[Mean_Chlorine]

Thusly Dr Engelbert Buxbaum > Spake Unto
All:

>> And in any case neons don't give a toss about pH. I kept neons in
>> water that's liquid limestone & pH 8.3 for years. They even spawned,
>> but the eggs don't fertilize at that pH - the adult fish, however,
>> don't care at all.
>
>How do you know that?

Well, these particular neons they lived & grew for 3 years until the
entire tank was wiped out by columnaris disease. At the start of the
outbreak they were over 3cm long, as big as neons ever get, and looked
quite healthy:
http://mikes-machine.mine.nu/specimens/Neon_DSC_0217.jpg

This alone has them doing better than the vast majority of neons sold,
so their lives can't have been too miserable.

Then there's charts such as these:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/field/003/AC183E/AC183E07.htm#ch7.
http://www.rwater.com/education/chem.htm
(Scroll down to pH: Effect on Aquatic Life)
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/images/wallawalla/ph_scale.jpg

....and the conspicuous absence of _non-aquarist_ literature suggesting
any fish at all has problems with any pH in the range 6.5 - 8.5.

I really want to stress the _non-aquarist_ bit.

>Have you dissected them and looked at their
>kidneys under the microscope? If you had, you'd have noticed the kidney
>stones that comes from growing them in "liquid limestone".

Do you have a reference for pH's under 8.5 causing kidney stones in
fish? Because I searched google scholar, medline, and zoological
record, but find none.

[Dr Engelbert Buxbaum]

Mean_Chlorine wrote:

> Do you have a reference for pH's under 8.5 causing kidney stones in
> fish? Because I searched google scholar, medline, and zoological
> record, but find none.

The problem is not pH per se, but its correlation with hardness:
Alcaline water is usually hard, acidic soft. And having high Ca-content
in hard (alkaline) water resulting in kidney stones is not unreasonable
provided that Ca-influx and -concentration in body fluids are not
completely independent of the external concentration.

The result was recently published as a PhD thesis and has been discussed
in the German newsgroup <de.rec.tiere.aquaristik>, I am not sure whether
it was also published in journal papers, especially English ones.