Comment

Comment by Sheri Schmeckpeper on July 25, 2012 at 8:27am

Great observation, Larry!

John, don't give up. Watch for nitrites and you'll know if your bacteria is working. You might want to add ammonia to see if that reading changes & to feed the bacteria. Hold on the PH work until you know the bacteria is well established...re-established. 

The ammonia in our system is the same as our tap, too, and it hasn't changed in a couple weeks. It's a low reading, so I'm not concerned about it, but it's odd. Everything else is as expected. Space aliens, maybe.

Comment by Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr. on July 25, 2012 at 12:12am

Tilapia orient to light to some degree. Normal behavior. It is good that you noticed it. Most people don't. ;-)

Comment by Larry in Casa Grande on July 24, 2012 at 11:01pm

My fish are so funny. I have noticed of course that plants lean toward the light. But I notice over the last few weeks that tilapia do to. At first I was concerned when I noticed their leaning posture, until I noticed it reversed when they are swimming the other direction. Always seeming to prefer to keep the light that enters the tank from one side only on the top of their body. Has anyone else noticed this phenomena?

Comment by John Malone on July 24, 2012 at 9:10pm

Despondent

I tested the water in the, now fishless, fish tank today and there was no change in the readings for pH and ammonia since I added the water on Saturday.  Now this is strange, because I've been adding half a cup of muriatic acid each day since Saturday and the pH test hasn't moved.

I'm also having trouble believing that my bacteria are completely gone and are not working on the ammonia at all.  

I took a sample of water from the faucet tonight and the pH and ammonia test colors are exactly, and I mean exactly, the same as what I drew from the fish tank.   

Something isn't right.

I'm getting despondent and frustrated.

Comment by Sheri Schmeckpeper on July 24, 2012 at 6:33pm

That's exactly where I put mine, Chris! :)  I'm in Gilbert. I just checked Gilbert's web & they have the 2010 report up there, but nothing newer.

Comment by Chris George on July 24, 2012 at 4:55pm

@Sheri....I saved my water quality report...but it is located 'somewhere' in the house, found it online lickety-split!  Mesa's, or are you Gilbert?, anyway, theirs should be online as well.  Scottsdale's was listed as the 2012 report, but the statistical data is for 2011.

Comment by Brian Perkins on July 24, 2012 at 4:45pm

Hi Larry in Casa Grande.   Thanks for you input.  (I'm in Arizona City) as we get moving on our project I'll start posting some Pics.... were getting excited to get going and look forward to Learning from the group... Thanks everyone!

Comment by Sheri Schmeckpeper on July 24, 2012 at 3:28pm

The SF website implied that they added chloramine, rather than adding ammonia to chlorinated water. But who knows?

We got our water report recently, but I don't think we saved it.

Comment by Chris George on July 24, 2012 at 3:17pm

Thanks Dr. Brooks, good information!  Jury is still out as to whether I will take that step and use it....one of the water treatment plants in Scottsdale is about a mile from me.  Might be time to see if they give a tour, pick their brains a bit....  When I read the last water quality report from the City (which is always a year old when I receive it) I looked for 'chlorimine' and didn't see it.  From Sheri's post I am understanding that the chlorimine is being created from the ammonia additive (when it is used) mixing with chlorine.  One little piece of good news was that my particular neighborhood (Chapparal to McCormick Pkwy) had a lower number on hardness (mineral content) in the water (lower than anywhere in Scottsdale, actually), maybe that will help when I get the big system up and running.  Just read over some of the report again....I live right near the North Indian Bend Wash which is a superfund site, always gives me the creeps reading the information even though I know they have a special treatment facility a couple of miles south of me to clean out the Trichloroethylene (TCE).

Comment by Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr. on July 24, 2012 at 3:16pm

I took a moment to do a little more looking regarding Macrobrachium. I did find a study directly related to our subject here from 2003 in Japan:

Effects of dechlorination methods of tap water on survival and growth of Macrobrachium nipponense larvae

Imai, T. (Tokai Univ., Tokyo (Japan)); Toyota, Y.; Saito, H.; Akiyama, N.

In Summary, the authors found a small effect on one population when Sodium thiosulfate was used but none on others. Here is the abstract:

Abstract: Tap water is generally used for the rearing experiment of aquatic animals. Dechlorination of tap water is required to eliminate harmful effect of residual chlorine which is used to control the quality of tap water. In this study, the effects of dechlorination methods of tap water on survival and growth of Macrobrachium nipponense larvae were investigated under feeding and non-feeding conditions. Tap water was dechlorinated by three methods, namely aeration, ion-exchange resin and sodium thiosulfate for rearing larvae. The animals were taken from a freshwater lake, Lake Suwa-ko, a brackish water lake, Lake Sanaru-ko, and a river, River Asahina-gawa which flows into Suruga Bay. Larvae from the Lake Suwa-ko and the Lake Sanaru-ko lived longer and reached more advanced stages in the tap water dechlorinated by aeration and ion-exchange resin than those in the same freshwater dechlorinated by sodium thiosulfate. Survival time of larvae from the River Asahina-gawa in tap water dechlorinated by the three methods showed no distinct difference. Moreover, almost all of the larvae did not molt in the freshwater. Adding seawater to the dechlorinated tap water improved the survival rate of larvae irrespective of the dechlorination methods. These results indicate that neither aeration nor ion-exchange resin for dechlorination of tap water affect larval rearing.

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