osmotic stress

willow

ok ,maybe i'm scaring myself unnessarily here.........
i'm looking up some info,and i come across this
osmotic stress,that can kill your fish ????
anyone know about this,experiance with this ?????

fish_4_all

I think it based on salt, KH, GH and pH. Basically a large swing in any of these can cause osmotic stress that can hurt a fish and in the worst case, kill them in a matter of hours. It is not a major thing to stress about though as long as you try to maintain levels and avoid large swings in them.

willow

ohh ok,
only i thought maybe that's what happened to my rams,
i bought them last week,and i found both golden rams dead
this morning.

fish_4_all

What are your tank parameters? Maybe we can get to the bottom of this. Also, how did oyu acclimate them and were there any signs of disease, fins missing or anything?

willow

well,i don't have KH and bits as the starter kit
has expired,
however i can tell you that in the small tank,ph8
middle tank with rams 7.5,big tank 7.5
tanks with ph of 7.5 have bog wood in,and the smallest
tank of ph8 has no wood in.
the rams were floated in the bag for 25-30 mins,to warm up
then i slowly began to add tank water to the bag,with
a syringe for another 20 mins.
released the fish and them swam off,neons,b.rams,
the two gold rams however stayed at the front
and acted like they had lived in the tank forever,
all week they have been the centre of attention,and so lively
yet this morning i go to feed them and they are nowhere to be seen,
on closer inspection both are dead.Nothing on the bodies at all.????
i feel it's something i am not doing right,having said that all
other fish are great.The guppies were breeding like mad,the cories had spawned(nothing hatched :( )

Falina

Is it possible that the water is simply too hard for them? Rams tend to prefer softer water and your water is quite hard. If they were bought locally it would reduce the chance of this being the problem, however, it's not always possible to tell how long the rams have been at the lfs. It could be that they were there for a short while before you bought them?

willow

hi julie
i think that the water being too hard was
and still is the problem,
i have lost three out of the four,i only have one little girlie
left,today i have put a large bit of wood in,and i am going
to try and get some stuff for the filter,and try and keep her.

Falina

Sorry to hear that Willow.

A piece fo driftwood should help bring the Ph down a little.

I had a similar problem to you once. My water is very soft and I had trouble keeping the snails alive but crushed coral seems to have sorted that now. Funny since we all want the fish/snails that we can't really have huh?

willow

well,there are some things i guess we are not ment to have indeed,
and rams are the thing that is not for me. :(
the wood makes a little bit of difference,as the ph is 7.5
where as the tank in the kitchen without wood is ph 8.
there are many more fish out there,that will be ok,
and i will go for them.
the tank is looking a little empty at the moment,so i shall
just take my time,and go slowly.
(you'd have thought i would have known that by now )

mHeinitz57

ask your LFS what their water parameters are and if they use salt. The main purpose of salt is for osmoregulation and many fish stores use salt in their tanks. If the fish have been in the store with salt for awhile then their bodies adjust to those conditions and sodium ion pumps in the cell walls of the fish do not get used. Then when the fish get put into a tank without salt they can go into an osmotic stress trying to osmoregulate their bodies again. This is a big part of why I don't suggest prolonged use of salt in a home aquarium.