Welcome To My Newsletter Series. In this newsletter letter series I will provide you with information about keeping tropical fish. The information contained in the newsletter comes from my passed experiences while working with fish, conversations I've had with friends and other tropical fish lovers, as well as knowledge I gain while researching material to write the book. So as you can see that the content comes from a number of sources, which I think make for a well rounded newsletter series.
Please feel free to forward this newsletter on to your friends who maybe interested in tropical fish keeping as well.
KEEPING OUT UNWANTED VISITORS
When maintaining a marine fish aquarium, there are some things you want and some you do not want. Unwanted visitors in the tank can cause stress to the fish, which could in some cases, result in death. In this newsletter, we wanted to identify some of the unwanted visitors you should be wary of to ensure you maintain healthy, happy, and beautiful fish.
Ammonia
When ammonia builds up in a marine aquarium, it results in a breakdown of fish metabolism. As ammonia constantly converts to ammonium and vice versa, you would measure both during testing of the water, which would result in the total ammonia concentration. If you find a detectable level of ammonia in your aquarium, you would need to take immediate steps to fix the problem.
Unfortunately, ammonia is highly toxic in freshwater tanks but in reef or saltwater, it is even more toxic. The reason is that reef and saltwater have higher pH levels, which would cause the presence of ammonia gas. That in turn makes is both more toxic and water-soluble.
Even during testing should you find a low level of ammonia, you need to take action in that this can severely, stress the fish. When fish become stressed, they are naturally vulnerable to disease, which can then lead to death in many situations. Because the accumulation of ammonia is so high, stress levels would typically become lethal.
Keep in mind that ammonia toxicity is dramatically influenced by two things – water temperature and pH levels. The lower the water and pH levels, the more ammonia can be tolerated by the fish. However, when the pH level reaches 8.5 with a 0.17ppm, the fish will die. In addition, if you were to maintain a tank temperature of 68 degrees, the fish would be 50% more tolerant of ammonia levels than a tank of 85 degrees.
Nitrate
First on the list of unwanted visitors is a substance called nitrate. This is the result of a bacterial breakdown of ammonia and nitrite, which is the last stage of the natural biological metabolic waste conversion known as a nitrogen cycle. While nitrate is less toxic than ammonia or nitrite, it can also produce high levels of stress. The result is the fishes’ organs have to work much harder than normal to adjust to the environment.
As the stress begins to build, the fish will eventually lose the ability to fight off disease, to heal itself, and to reproduce. Therefore, when keeping a marine fish aquarium, you need to always, maintain the proper environment. When nitrate levels are too high, this means the tank is not being maintained properly. While some of the potential problems may not show up right away, you will end up with all types of challenges.
Nitrite
Finally, when you first set up your new aquarium, nitrogenous compounds would be high, enabling bacteria to form a colony, which begins the important nitrogen cycle. Both Nitrobacterium and Nitrosomonas are aerobic bacteria, meaning they need a constant flow of oxygen to survive and perform their duties properly.
The goal with your marine aquarium is to get the nitrite levels at an undetectable level at all times once the tank has gone through the cycling process. Although nitrites are not as dangerous as ammonia, they can still reach toxic levels, which stress the fish. Even levels of 0.5ppm is too much. Now, if the nitrite level should go beyond 10 to 20ppm over time, they would be lethal to the fish. In this case, you need to take immediate action if levels remain high more than seven days.
What happens is that nitrite interferes with the oxygen metabolism of your fish, destroying oxygen-carrying cells known as hemoglobin. If you detect high levels of nitrite in your tank, it means the biological filter is not working as it should, the filtration system is not capable of handling the fish load, or that you have too many fish. For this, take the appropriate action and then retest to ensure the levels have decreased.
I hope you enjoyed this article and look forward to the next article which looks at marine algae.
Until next time...
Katy
www.kingdomofpets.com/tropicalfish
If you are really serious about learning more about keeping tropical fish, Click Here to order my Book and DVD set. Let me guide you through it all!
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