Water quality issues:

CJ

Though from whence one gets their tap water and its quality may not seem to be on-topic; I believe it dramatically effects your tanks water quality and, especially the livestock which is taken from the wild.

If you are feeling safe in knowing that reverse osmosis removes contaminations from the water, think about this:

Emerging contaminates range from gasoline additives which enter the water supply from run off, to estrogen tablets taken as a birth control method. Reverse osmosis can only remove particles which are larger than a water molecule. There are many chemical molecules which are smaller than a water molecule, including medications which are released into urban waste water systems from the human urinary tract! Think of it, Prozac, Viagra, and the human hormone Estrogen, just to name a few, may be smaller than a water molecule.

In regions of plentiful water, sewage is often treated, then discarded into bodies of water where fish live and breed. In nearly all of the Western United States, there is an old saying that, "Whiskey is for drinking and Water is for fighting over." Water is rare enough that potable municipal water is recycled from raw sewage. The system is often referred to as "Crap to Tap."

The following is an article taken last spring from an Arizona newspaper article:

Arizona Study:
Treated Wastewater Harmful to Fish, Could be Harmful to People



A study conducted recently by University of Arizona scientists suggests that prolonged exposure or consumption of potable water derived from treated wastewater could cause detrimental health effects.
In the study, researchers placed an endangered fish species — the bonytail chub — in tanks that contained, in part, treated effluent from Pima County’s Roger Road sewage plant.


After three months, the fish began to show up to five times more hormones of the opposite sex than their own sex, effectively altering their sexuality. Other studies in the United States and Europe have resulted in similar findings.


The researchers told the Arizona Daily Star that they worry it is not just fish that could be affected. No one knows if the compounds in treated wastewater can harm human reproduction because their effects on people haven’t been studied thoroughly, the scientists say. Tucson residents may want this information within the next few years; they are expected to determine by 2014 if they want Tucson Water officials to begin a so-called “toilet-to-tap” program.

joeshmoe

my fish had changed sex then died mybe i got bad water but i never drink from my tap :D

Oceane

Scary By the way Joe, some livebearers are able to change sex... Usually from female to male i believe. May not have anything to do with your tap water.

CJ

Interesting. Which live bearers and how long after birth?

Lupin

Probably the swordtails. It "was" only a myth. Female swords are believed to change into males when they grow old but they confirmed that some males are late developers thus the "female" swords developed male characteristics at a late age.

joeshmoe

mine was Platy and it was iwhen i fan out condisherner

CJ

Worldwide, since statistics began to be kept back in the 1960's, there are approximately 8 children per 200 million born, who are sexually ambiguous. Meaning, they can pass as females even though their testis's are embedded (sit where human ovaries do). This has been a boom for Western surgeons whose societies demand by law that the sex of a child be proclaimed by the third day after birth. Societies which have only two options; Male/Female. In the US Virgin Isle's, they call the sexually ambiguous "Drops at 14" which means that by age 14 the testis may drop.

These are not unique to the 20th & 21st Centuries. As far back as the days of Moses, in the book of Leviticus, Israeli's were ordered to untie the umbilical chords of the newborn whose sex could not be identified and the child left for the wolves and carrion birds to devour. They were considered to be "...an abomination." To this day, indigenous Sunni and Shiite tribes will follow the Mosaic Laws, at worse, leaving their sexually ambiguous children in an orphanage.

In times past, even in the United States, these children were seen as a family shame and their parents would often tell others the child was Still-Born if they did not have the finances to afford plastic surgery.

As off topic as this may seem. the point is sexual ambiguousness is an historical fact. However, when entire schools of fish suffer from the defect, we must search for the causes before we doom ourselves in an feigned attempt to claim we are making things better.