I almost called it quits

[Gillie]

I lost every fish I own except a pair of convicts which keep my turtle company. Apparently I grew to comfortable with the ph of my tap water and had stopped testing the ph when I did my changes and buffered and lowered the ph for my apistos as usual. No big deal right? WRONG! I share a well with the rest of my community and the well pumps got a cleaning and a softening agent was added( note that noone in the community was informed of this). Now here comes the fun part. I did all of my water changes this last weekend and my apistos started dying left and right, I was freaking out testing everything but my ph and almost having a breakdown.Finally on Monday I catch wind of what had been done to the water and tested the ph. Well in the tanks with tank raised apistos the ph was between 6.0 and 6.5 a normal of 7.6 to 7.8. The tanks with my wilds in them I couldn't get a reading with the test. I was completely ready to give up when a few of my friends told me they would help get things back to normal and lend me some of their fish to spawn and get going again. needless to say it was such a horrifying experience that I will never make this mistake again and test my ph constantly from now on.

 

[QTOFFER]

Sorry about your losses. That's so annoying that the town did maintenance on the water system and neglected to inform anyone!

 

[An t-iasg]

Gille, I'm so sorry to hear this. It's always terrible when something like this happens and it's out of our control (like power outages too) and it impacts negatively on the fish. I'm glad some friends are giving you some fish to spawn with and that you're not giving up!

I don't know if it's necessary to do pH testing constantly now - but I do see your point, especially if you're not sure what/when they're doing something to the well. Once a week would probably suffice, or whenever you do water changes. Have you considered a digital pH meter? I have one as part of my CO2 system. It's nice to always know the pH at a glance. Also, have you considered calling the company that maintains the well and letting them know you're unhappy that no one was notified of the upcoming maintenance?

 

[Alshain]

Yeah its a shame but the water systems always assume that water is for drinking and bathing and sudden maintenances don't affect anyone adversely. They don't bother to think of things like aquariums.

 

[mom2reds]

sorry for you losses Good luck in starting over

 

[Gillie]

I have every thing running rather smoothly now each tank has a few Corys in them. Hopefully this weekend I can get some Apistos into them.