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Posted: 26 Apr 2006, 14:32
by MatsP
A few, inspired by Larry Vires' book on breeding plecos that mentions Acidosis - and then I had to expand on that...
Acidosis: Low pH in the blood of a fish (or other animal). This can be caused by fast pH lowering (pH crash) or for example lactic acid buildup from the fish being chased around in an effort to catch it. In extreme cases, acidosis can kill.
Alkalosis: High pH in the blood of a fish (or other animal). Generally caused by too high pH in the water that the fish is kept in, particularly when they are moved from a relatively low pH to a higher pH without an acclimatization process.
pH crash: Rapid lowering of the pH due to lack of buffering capacity.
--
Mats
Posted: 26 Apr 2006, 21:00
by bronzefry
Thanks, Mats. Getting back to GH and KH, the more I research, the more confused I get. Each country has a different standard: English(Clark), American, French and German. The German standard measures calcium oxide. The others measure calcium carbonate. How is one supposed to know if a test kit is accurate if a standard varies?
Amanda
Posted: 27 Apr 2006, 11:38
by MatsP
Lets get one thing straight first of all:
All these tests for hardness (KH or GH) are measuring the EQUIVALENT of calciumcarbonate or calciumoxide or something like. Maybe we should call this "idealized measurements"[1]. They don't actually differentiate the different types of actual salts, so for example magnesium carbonate will be equivalent to calcium carbonate [and technically over-read in a sense of weight of compound per volume water, since magnesium atoms is lighter than calcium atoms - not that it makes a whole lot of difference, since one magnesium is as bad (or good) as one calcium from a conductivity/hardness point of view - it just weighs less when you have it on a scale].
By the way, the measurement of calcium carbonate/calcium oxide is based on converting the calcium carbonate to calcium oxide - all carbonates break down at 180'C into oxide and carbon dioxide, so CaCO3 will turn into CaO and CO2 at 180'C. [This is part of the production of cement, and old-fashioned lime-based mortar/plaster is simply calcium oxide that when mixed with water form calcium hydroxide - and the formation of calcium carbonate by taking up carbon dioxide from the air to form a solid compound].
GH is a total hardness measure - and the measurement is converted into equivalent terms of either calcium carbonate or calcium oxide (or perhaps something else), KH is a "buffering" measurement, which is how much (bi)carbonates you have in the water.
Today, the measurment is pretty much standardized for ppm or German scale (D(g)H).
So, what I'm trying to say is that the test will "idealize" the measurment - and the scale of the measurement is different depending on the country of origin of the scale (and what it actually tries to measure).
There are similar discussions when measuring nitrous waste in water - if you actually want to know how much NITROGEN the water contains, rather than nitrate, nitrite and ammonia - as they are all nitrous waste-products, and the measure is more accurate of how much waste you have if you only count the nitrogen part, not the hydrogen and/or oxygen that is tied to it. And some test-kits will give nitrogen, others will give nitrate in it's reading of ppm (althrough the latter is the by far most common). This can make a big difference, as one N is tied to three O's in nitrate, and they are of almost equivalent weight (N is 14, O is 16 in atomic weight). So for example 14 ppm NITROGEN would be 14 + 16 * 3 => 62 ppm NITRATE...
[1] Based on the case of "In an ideal world, all hardness is X", where as "in the real world, hardness consists of X, Y, Z, W, etc."
I hope this helps, and that you don't have to think about it for too long...
--
Mats
Posted: 27 Apr 2006, 14:41
by bronzefry
Mats, I went back to find what I originally put in for KH and GH and all the responses, including the generous one you just posted
:
GH: An abbreviation for Gesamtharte, literally meaning General Hardness in German. A laboratory standard for measuring the concentration of calcium and magnesium ions in water.
KH: An abbreviation for Karbonatharte, literally meaning Carbonate Hardness in German. A laboratory standard for measuring the concentration of calcium and magnesium bicarbonate in water.
I think "laboratory standard" is good. Are we getting closer? Also, how do I get the Umlaut? Is it a software thing or a hardware thing?
Amanda
Posted: 27 Apr 2006, 14:53
by Jools
bronzefry wrote:Yes, I need to ask Jools. How do I do that again? The barbel linking thing? Also, is there a way, in the future, in your spare time, we could add url links to a definition? Is that too much for now?
OK, you can link to a glossary term by doing the following, here were have an example of a textual entry that is to link to the defitnion for the term "eye":
Code: Select all
This is an <a href='#Eye'>eye</a> socket.
or, more generically,
Code: Select all
This is a link to a glossary <a href='#Term'>TeRm</a>
I've not actually tried this, so do one experimental one first! Email or pm me if you've trouble with this.
Can you expand a bit more on what you'd like to achieve with URL links? Maybe a couple of real life examples?
Jools
Posted: 27 Apr 2006, 15:03
by MatsP
a-umlaut is typed (on a PC at least) by holding ALT and typing 132 on the numerical part of the keyboard. So that's done in software. Uppercase is ALT-142.
O-umlaut is (lowercase) ALT-148 and ALT-153.
(You can type just about anything this way, for example, ALT-65 will give you an A, ALT-66 gives a B, etc)
Obviously, you can also set the keyboard mapping of the keyboard to german or swedish or some such, and hit the keys around the [, ], and ; to find the corresponding letters - but for occassional use, that's too much like hard work for me...
Finally, the hardware isn't any different in Germany (or Sweden or whatever), except for what's printed on top of the keyboard and in some cases there's an extra key next to the Enter key - but the actual data coming out of the cable from the keyboard is exactly identical if you hit the same key on the keyboard, whatever is being printed on top of the key... [Sorry, that was probably more than you wanted to know about keys and keyboards... ]
--
Mats
Posted: 27 Apr 2006, 15:08
by MatsP
Jools wrote:bronzefry wrote:Yes, I need to ask Jools. How do I do that again? The barbel linking thing? Also, is there a way, in the future, in your spare time, we could add url links to a definition? Is that too much for now?
OK, you can link to a glossary term by doing the following, here were have an example of a textual entry that is to link to the defitnion for the term "eye":
Code: Select all
This is an <a href='#eye'>eye</a> socket.
or, more generically,
Code: Select all
This is a link to a glossary <a href='#term'>TeRm</a>
I've not actually tried this, so do one experimental one first! Email or pm me if you've trouble with this.
Can you expand a bit more on what you'd like to achieve with URL links? Maybe a couple of real life examples?
Jools
I think a typical example would be ICZN:
ICZN - International Committe for Zoological Nomenclature. The organisation that looks after the code of ... The code can be found here. [And we want to make "here"] a link.
I think you can use the same href thing, except you need to put a link in there, but I'm not sure - I don't write HTML very much...
--
Mats
Posted: 27 Apr 2006, 15:21
by Jools
Mats,
OK, in which case Amanda'd write:
Code: Select all
International Committe for Zoological Nomenclature. The organisation that looks after the code of ... The code can be found <a href='http://www.somewhereonline.com/' target='_blank'>here</a>.
However, I could add another, optional field to the input form that Amanda uses to just paste in a URL and it will add an extra..
See also
this site.
...at the end of the definition without Amanda having to put in correct XHTML.
Jools
Posted: 27 Apr 2006, 15:34
by Jools
bronzefry wrote:Also, how do I get the Umlaut? Is it a software thing or a hardware thing?
Amanda
Ah, welcome to the world of HTML special entities. To do it properly (i.e. best practice), you type it as follows below and then the local browser settings will take care of it, do it any other way and it is less likely to work globally. Remove underlines from this example:
Sch&_a_u_m_l_;_fer or Sch&_#_2_2_8_;_fer are equivalent and display as Schäfer.
For a bigger list, see
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_entities.asp
&_d_e_g_;_ (displays as °) is one I use a lot for the temperature degrees symbol.
Jools
Posted: 28 Apr 2006, 14:25
by bronzefry
Let me try the umlaut on the KH and GH definitions:
GH: An abbreviation for Gesamthärte, literally meaning General Hardness in German. A laboratory standard for measuring the concentration of calcium and magnesium ions in water.
KH: An abbreviation for Karbonahärte, literally meaning Carbonate Hardness in German. A laboratory standard for measuring the concentration of calcium and magnesium carbonates in water.
It works! Thank you so much, Mats and Jools!
I'll try the "barbel" and web-site linking things off-line.
Amanda
Posted: 29 Apr 2006, 15:39
by bronzefry
Ichthyotoxic: Poisonous to fish.
Oocyte: An egg cell.
Filter: Any device that maintains water quality in an aquarium. The common types are power (or hang-on-back), canister, and internal.
Flashing: When a fish "scratches" on objects in the aquarium. This may be due to an irritation, such as external parasite.
Pinnate: Feather-like.
Vermiculation: A wavy, worm-like pattern.
Amanda
Posted: 29 Apr 2006, 17:41
by Jools
It's a bit picky, but I'd alter the last one to read:
Vermiculation: A wavy, worm-like or network pattern.
Jools
Posted: 30 Apr 2006, 15:46
by bronzefry
Not a problem. Picky is good and makes for better reading!
Amanda
Posted: 01 May 2006, 10:28
by Durlänger
Posted: 01 May 2006, 13:49
by bronzefry
Good idea, Durlänger(also, if our German needs correcting such as the KH and GH definitions, please let us know
). Jools, will that article be there for a while? What about linking to it in the definition? I'll be starting on that soon.
Rheophilic: Species that love moving water.
Acclimation: The process where a fish becomes used to a new set of circumstances, such as water parameters.
Conservation: The planned saving of an ecosystem and the species in it.
Amanda
Posted: 01 May 2006, 14:32
by Durlänger
bronzefry wrote:
KH: An abbreviation for Karbonahärte, literally meaning Carbonate Hardness in German. A laboratory standard for measuring the concentration of calcium and magnesium carbonates in water.
Amanda
Karbonathärte not Karbonahärte you forgot the t
Edit: Saw that you now get used to the Umlaut`s
Posted: 01 May 2006, 14:43
by housewren
In general, I like Shane's definitions regarding various types of filtration. They are straight-forward, and easy to understand.
There are, however, a couple points, that may need to be clarified.
Under biological filtration, it says "The end product of biological filtration, nitrate, can only be removed via water changes." This is not always true. I have slow-grow (non-CO2) well-planted tanks, and I have to keep on eye on the nitrate level and sometimes ADD nitrate because the plants can use it faster than the fish and bacteria produce it.
Second, diatom filters should be considered mechanical filters rather than "non-filters", because they are removing particulates.
Posted: 01 May 2006, 14:49
by Jools
housewren wrote:Under biological filtration, it says "The end product of biological filtration, nitrate, can only be removed via water changes." This is not always true. I have slow-grow (non-CO2) well-planted tanks, and I have to keep on eye on the nitrate level and sometimes ADD nitrate because the plants can use it faster than the fish and bacteria produce it.
Yeah, but what if the fish eat the plants or the plants die? If I understand the chemistry and point being made correctly, the nitrates are still in the system. Therefore water changes (or things like algae filters or pruning) are the only way to remove nitrates? Somebody correct me if I'm missing something.
Jools
Posted: 01 May 2006, 19:19
by Jools
Yes, the article will be there for a while. Reference it using.
Code: Select all
Filter: See <a href='../shanesworld/271.PHP'>this article</a>.
Jools
Posted: 01 May 2006, 19:23
by Jools
bronzefry wrote:
Acclimation: The process where a fish becomes used to a new set of circumstances, such as water parameters.
Conservation: The planned saving of an ecosystem and the species in it.
I think acclimation is an AmericaniZation, the people who invented the language would say Acclimitisation.
Maybe have both? Any Aussies out there reading this? Could you confirm what you guys would say?
It's nit picking but I'd also use "the planned preservation" for the Conservation defn.
Jools
Posted: 02 May 2006, 15:32
by MatsP
Jools wrote:housewren wrote:Under biological filtration, it says "The end product of biological filtration, nitrate, can only be removed via water changes." This is not always true. I have slow-grow (non-CO2) well-planted tanks, and I have to keep on eye on the nitrate level and sometimes ADD nitrate because the plants can use it faster than the fish and bacteria produce it.
Yeah, but what if the fish eat the plants or the plants die? If I understand the chemistry and point being made correctly, the nitrates are still in the system. Therefore water changes (or things like algae filters or pruning) are the only way to remove nitrates? Somebody correct me if I'm missing something.
Jools
Jools and Shane are sort of right - First of all, the situation where the fish doesn't produce enough nitrate for the plants is probably unusual, it requires quite quite an abundance of ast-growing plants and very few fish (and carefull feeding of those fish). This means a tank that is primarily set up for plants and not fish - which is fine if that's what you want, but I think the average fish-keeper on this site has more of a problem with "too many fish" than "not enough fish" in regards to keeping the nitrate levels correct...
Second, if we IGNORE the special case of "lots of plants, few fish", there IS a way to reduce Nitrate to Nitrogen. However, this assumes bacteria in anaerobic environment (i.e. no oxygen), which is not something you should find in the average fish-tank - and if you do, probably should do something about. It CAN occur under rocks and/or deep gravel, and if you're unlucky with anaerob activity, you also get hydrogen sulfide, which is the same compound that makes the smell in rotten eggs (I think it may well be the same/similar bacteria, it's certainly the same end-result chemically).
So, unless you have anaerob activity or LOTS of plants, the only way to get rid of nitrate is to remove it together with the water it's in....
--
Mats
Posted: 02 May 2006, 16:48
by Jools
Yeah, but you've still not removing it or your making it into something worse. How about changing Shane's definition to "sensibly remove" and, if we must, add some allusion to regularly stocked tanks.
Jools
Posted: 02 May 2006, 17:12
by MatsP
Jools wrote:Yeah, but you've still not removing it or your making it into something worse. How about changing Shane's definition to "sensibly remove" and, if we must, add some allusion to regularly stocked tanks.
Jools
I agree completely.
I do believe that it's POSSIBLE to convert Nitrate to Nitrogen by slow anaerob (biological) filtration (or chemical procesing of course). I read somewhere about someone using a 25m hose that flowed about one drop per minute, and it reduced nitrate into nitrogen (which is a gas and will dissipate into the air). There are filters for marine tanks that use a similar biological filtration. Yet, those are only "sensible" if you have some sort of serious problem changing water (living in a desert where water is very expensive or physical disability come to mind, and there's probably other better methods of solving the latter)- and it still leaves a bunch of other waste-product in thw water that you'd remove with wate changes...
--
Mats
Posted: 02 May 2006, 19:24
by bronzefry
Thanks, for the correction, Durlänger. I'll get to it today.
I've been trying to avoid Americanizations as much as I can. If I stray towards them, please let me know! I looked in Mary Bailey's
Fishlopaedia and the spelling is:
Acclimatisation.
The Dictionary of Aquarium Terms by John H Tullock has:
Acclimation. The definitions are the same. Go figure.
Amanda
Posted: 03 May 2006, 14:26
by bronzefry
I got the links in for ICZN and filter in the glossary. I don't know if this is a big deal or not, but these forward you to the link. It doesn't open up a new window. Is this beyond my grasp at the moment? Just curious.
What definitions have we missed? Are there certain areas we want to stay away from, such as medicines and plants? What are your thoughts?
Amanda
Posted: 03 May 2006, 17:20
by Jools
bronzefry wrote:I don't know if this is a big deal or not, but these forward you to the link. It doesn't open up a new window. Is this beyond my grasp at the moment? Just curious.
House style is to open another window if going off-site. You need to put a target attribute in the link to do this. i.e.
Code: Select all
<a href='http://goatonapole.com/' target='_blank'>Go here!</a>
giving <a href='
http://goatonapole.com/' target='_blank'>Go here!</a>.
Jools
Posted: 04 May 2006, 00:36
by Shane
I do believe that it's POSSIBLE to convert Nitrate to Nitrogen by slow anaerob (biological) filtration (or chemical procesing of course). I read somewhere about someone using a 25m hose that flowed about one drop per minute, and it reduced nitrate into nitrogen (which is a gas and will dissipate into the air). There are filters for marine tanks that use a similar biological filtration. Yet, those are only "sensible" if you have some sort of serious problem changing water (living in a desert where water is very expensive or physical disability come to mind, and there's probably other better methods of solving the latter)- and it still leaves a bunch of other waste-product in thw water that you'd remove with wate changes...
Yes, anaerobic bacteria can convert nitrate to nitrogen. You still need an active aerobic filter though to get from ammonia to nitrite to nitrate before anaerobic bacteria can do the nitrate to nitrogen part. This system is called the "Jaubert Method." The problem with the system, and why it is no longer popular, is that the plenum (space for anaerobic bacteria) must be 100% anaerobic. There is no way to bleed off the nitrogen without destroying the very plenum itself since a hose or tube would allow O2 to enter the plenum and kill the bacteria.
The system works very well until too much nitrogen builds up in the plenum, bubbles up through the sand bed, displaces all the O2 in the tank's water, and kills everything in the tank. Large nitrogen releases from natural plenums (usually the results of anaerobic conditions under deep leaf litter) in anaerobic swamps and lakes can be caused by earthquakes with horrible results for animals and people. That said, I doubt a plenum "blow up" could give off enough gas to displace the O2 in a room and hurt an aquarist.
Aquarists can test for nitrates and remove them via water changes. Anaerobic systems just change one easy to manage waste product for a more dangerous one.
-Shane
Posted: 04 May 2006, 13:35
by bronzefry
I'll give that one a try.
Aerobic: Life requiring free oxygen.
Anaerobic: Life that does not require free oxygen.
Amanda
Posted: 04 May 2006, 21:24
by Jools
bronzefry wrote:Aerobic: Life requiring free oxygen.
Anaerobic: Life that does not require free oxygen.
What happens if you have to pay for it?
Jools
Posted: 05 May 2006, 13:55
by bronzefry
I always wondered about that! We make jokes about car advertisements on television. "Comes with free air." Talk about Americanizations. Takes too much time to say "Comes with free air conditioning." What gets me is that you still pay for the vehicle and said air conditioning.
T-Position: The manner in which some Callichthyidae catfishes breed. So named because the breeding pair look as if they are forming the English alphabet letter "T." Also see Ventral Fin Basket.
Ventral Fin Basket: A clamping of the ventral fins by the female of some Callichthyidae catfishes so that she may carry fertilized eggs. Also see T-Position.
I'm not sure if the 2 above are Americanizations. Please let me know if they are. Feel free to expand or contract.
I thought I put ICZN back into the glossary yesterday. I guess I didn't. Am I seeing things?
Amanda