Common for tap water to be highly carbonated?

that is definitly not the ase here. here it goes from like 7.2 only to 7.6. Maybe you should let it sit and degass before you add to the tank

Taste it? Could there really be that much CO2 in it?

Update: based on my geography, my water should be soft-ish. This probably isn't as much CO2 as it first seems if you come from a hard water area. The water doesn't taste acidic at all, I drink it straight from the tap, and it tastes quite neutral. (pun intended)

stick in a drop checker or look up the kh & ph - co2 chart.

Yeah, I know, I'm working on that. It's a question of time and money. No scale, no test kits... bah.

I'm really frustrated now, because I did this weekend's water change with fully degassed water. I made sure that the pH matched to within a few tenths of a unit, and I added the water slowly, maybe 30-40% of the tank over half an hour. My fish were still stressed out, and I still killed off a snail. Other people might think killing snails is a good thing, but not like this.

You are in Baltimore and you are on a well???

Anyway - how deep is the well? I suspect it is something besides dissolved gases that is stressing out your fish. High ammonia or nitrate maybe? Shallow wells in agricultural areas are prone to this.

KevinC said:

You are in Baltimore and you are on a well???

Anyway - how deep is the well? I suspect it is something besides dissolved gases that is stressing out your fish. High ammonia or nitrate maybe? Shallow wells in agricultural areas are prone to this.

Click to expand...

No, I moved and haven't updated my profile. I live in Myersville, outside of Frederick about three miles from the Appalachian trail. Needless to say, it's farm country through and through - at least where the subdivisions haven't hit yet.

My wellhead is maybe 100 feet above a creek, so I have a feeling that the bottom of the well is pretty shallow. It might be an old well too, since this property used to be a farm and has a 100 year old house (with a stone basement.)

I'm getting really frustrated; this morning I found two of my six Hengel's rasboras dead, and the others haven't been eating too well and have been freaking out, swimming against the plastic in the corners of the tank and stuff.

To Much CO2..?

Something else than CO2 killing your fish...

Any smell this water?

You should bring this for testing (ask your Town Hall)

Do that for your fish and maybe for yourself to....
:icon_sad:

Do you add Prime or any other water conditioner? If not, try it - maybe you have high ammonia from a shallow well - the Prime will bind it up. If it works, problem solved (for the fish - I agree with Glouglou - have it tested for your own health).

This has a list of labs that will test water 'in your area', they might not be next door.
http://inetdocs.loudoun.gov/health/docs/ehrural_/wellseptic_/fsn3wellom/fsn3wellom.pdf

Agreed, I need to learn more about my water chemistry, if only because I'm also drinking it. I doubt this well has been tested in the last fifteen years, if ever...