FishySituation Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 I recently discovered that my tap water has very little calcium. I recall information from a YouTube video or something stating that calcium in the water is vital for fish. Is this true? I always assumed that the fish food contained calcium and all the minerals they needed. If this is true then it would explain the slow growth of my Cory cats and other problems that I could never figure out the cause. Same thing for plants. I just started dosing equilibrium to fix this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyoftheLake Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 (edited) I'm not sure, but your question made me wonder how much much calcium meets their daily nutrient needs? fish species may differ in their need, and what percentage of that do fish absorb from the water? do you remember the source of the water absorption idea? you can check your fish food for how much calcium it contains, but I'd dig deeper for some academic sources to find out what they need before throwing any additives in the tank. Edited October 20, 2020 by LadyoftheLake 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishySituation Posted October 20, 2020 Author Share Posted October 20, 2020 8 minutes ago, LadyoftheLake said: “do you remember the source of the water absorption idea? you can check your fish food for how much calcium it contains...” I believe the video where I heard this was KGtropical’s video on GH and KH. Also I have checked my fish food ingredients and they all contain very little calcium other than the repashy. The food that the corys eat has calcium listed as the last ingredient so I doubt it is a sufficient amount Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishySituation Posted October 20, 2020 Author Share Posted October 20, 2020 Oops I’m sorry I meant Prime Time Aquatics, not KGtropicals. The vid is titled “fish tank water hardness fully explained: don’t kill your fish” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 How much calcium does your tap water have? I know there are saltwater test kits for calcium, is there a freshwater water one? I checked my 'Breeding Corydoradine Catfishes' by Ian Fuller and he doesn't mention calcium or hardness specifically although it is implied in GH. Typically page on breeding 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spewing_nonsense_ Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 I mean calcium is definitely important to have in your water, especially if you have plants, but even for your fish too, especially if you're breeding them. But if you dont have enough calcium in the water I'm pretty sure, not 100%, that that could lead to things like hole in the head, now not saying if you dont that it 100% leads to that, and also I'm not even sure the accuracy of that, but I do know that at least a little calcium and other trace elements in the water column are important for fish 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishySituation Posted October 20, 2020 Author Share Posted October 20, 2020 Honestly I don’t know because I haven’t tested for calcium specifically, but I know there’s very little since all my snails shells are white and flaky and I can also see it in the plants. My water is also pretty soft 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyoftheLake Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 I dug up a paper, the reference section has more sources to look into. ResearchGate WWW.RESEARCHGATE.NET ResearchGate is a network dedicated to science and research. Connect, collaborate and discover scientific publications, jobs and conferences. All for... 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 Interesting, The answer seemed to be 'it depends'. And even more importantly the amount of calcium needs to be carefully balanced against the amount of phosphorus in the diet as calcium can inhibit the uptake of phosphorus (with negative consequences). 'Higher dietary Ca levels reduced weight gain and feed efficiency values in channel catfish (Gatlin & Phillips 1989), rainbow trout (Spinelli et al. 1983) and Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha (Richardson et al. 1985). Nakamura (1982) and Porn-Ngam et al. (1993) have also reported inhibited P absorption with increasing dietary Ca levels in common carp and rainbow trout, respectively.' 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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