Blessed Water ---TDS and Koi

Well there is magic in water, And some waters are Truly Blessed ,its true and every Koi keeper understands this .how to get magical water was a quest that koi keepers have tried over the years , they have tried to add magical substances to the water to enhance beauty and growth .

Different chemical additives, and mud have been tried , People have argued either ways about the effectiveness, but the new trend is to remove stuff from water .

Keepers have tried to remove stuff from waters with different kind of filters over the years and we have finally arrived at Bakki Towers fed by rotary drums .. the journey  is far from over …if there was even a significant percentage of research like the ones going in to the latest electronic products then ,I would not be surprised that we would have some kind of very small “electrostaticaly  ionised” filters that can remove what exactly we want to remove at different stages .

Now remember this, most fish like Koi , Arowana  come from rivers , or small water streams puddle wetlands eg Betta etc.  so they are enriched by Rainwater ,(there are always exceptions like lake Malawi cichlids which survive in alkaline waters )

Now what is special about rain water – Let me introduce a new word Here “TDS” i.e. Total dissolved solids. Rain water is the purest form of water available in nature..

Now rain water will have a TDS of round about 12 PPM(parts per million) i.e. only  0.0012% of the entire volume is anything other than pure H₂0 . After it falls down to earth it flows down mixes with different substances on land and then the water will have a TDS of around 40 PPM .I am taking about water flowing in tropical river here ,like those flowing out of the Western Ghats or Himalayas .

Now what do you notice about the fish at the origins of these rivers ,like  Mahseer & Himalayan Cat fish – or the Mekong Catfish & Giant Carp , or the Arapaimas of the Amazon .

The same goes for the mountains of Nigata ..!

They grow huge, healthy and  have a huge span of life .isn’t that what we are trying to do .

Lets have a basic look at your normal water cycle that any Koi Keeper would follow. Fresh tap water at a TDS ~ 40 PPM , when feeds fish releases waste. 10 % water changes happen over each week. so in the time  of a week in a well stocked tank  your TDS would have risen to ~80 PPM.

Now even after a week or two more your TDS would have raised to 150 and by the end of the month your TDS would have risen to above 200 .. Water containing TDS concentrations below 1000 mg/litre is usually acceptable for human consumption, but is supposed to taste better than water at less than 200 PPM .Now hard water drinkers from places like “Bangalore” ,who are dependent on deep bore water tend to disagree ..But believe me once they get hooked to the taste of something like River Cavery, they would change ..

Now so how can you replicate this in an pond– invest in a TDS meter ,for starters .

–I have heard a lot about RO(Reverse Osmosis) water being the new magical water, not RO water directly but a small percentage mixed with the normal Pond water. To balance and keep the TDS at around 40 – You can do the process manually by adding an RO stage between your filtration system , You don’t even need the system that adds some solids back so that  the TDS is raised slightly . You can manually control these systems and  turn the RO device on alternate days or so, while monitoring the TDS in the tank periodically , As an RO output will be small no sudden changes will affect the fish..

Frequent water changes really can help you control TDS as well as lot of other  things- but huge water wastage is the downside  here .. you can do a 10% daily change as well as a 50% water change weekly , But this becomes a slow & tedious process .

Rain water feeding is a cost effective and great way, provided that you are in  south western Area Like Goa ,Mangalore etc ,blessed or cursed  (depending on your view point ) by almost 6 Months of rains and after that summer showers too .. You can hook up your tank with an overflow and rain water feed directly …Precaution against pH crash needs to be in place . 

For  an overall Koi keeper scenario RO Purifiers are a great option and if you connect part of the filter output to the system  and work it for enough time every week , or bring out your own schedule monitoring the TDS keeping it under 100 PPM, you have won half the battle..

Now well all i have done is to prove that , we cannot raise large Koi with a higher TDS !! but the vice versa is not always true .. Low TDS always  does not mean larger KOI ! It depends on Factors like Protein in food and Genetics too , But if you have the other parameters right , then the TDS helps out a lot .

It just accelerates the growth to the best possible extents...