Nitrite toxicity discussion

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threnjen said:
Sounds good. But, most people don't have a scale that accurate, so we have to be able to disseminate in a more understandable form.

Do guys use stuff like tsp and Tbsp?? I don't actually know.
(why oh why doesn't the US convert to metric and stop being so dumb and annoying)
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Haha. We live for teaspoons and table spoons. Yes I know I'm just trying to figure something out I'm my own mind. I want to know how fish are being protected inadvertently in elevated levels of nitrite. Or are they? I'm sure that it's not as toxic as we think.
 
threnjen said:
Wow so that paper is really different. 2mg/l for .76ppm nitrite, and the paper I referenced was 93mg/l for 1ppm nitrite?? :confused:

OK but... maybe in GOOD news... the amount of salt we are talking about is overall really, REALLY low. I mean 1/2tsp per 40l is really nothing. So even if we estimate high, there's really little chance of any sort of "damage" to the fish that are less salt tolerant. (in my opinion)
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This is true but I'm still thinking along the lines of my tap water chloride. It's at 5.5mg/l that's not enough according to the first paper.
 
Like I double checked the aquarium salt box and it says a rounded tablespoon per 20l. So the "nitrite protection" dose that I suggested is 1/12th this! Even salt intolerant species can handle this petty level of sodium.
 
threnjen said:
Like I double checked the aquarium salt box and it says a rounded tablespoon per 20l. So the "nitrite protection" dose that I suggested is 1/12th this! Even salt intolerant species can handle this petty level of sodium.
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Haha yes. I'm thinking there maybe other forms of chloride in tap water.
 
Caliban07 said:
Haha. We live for teaspoons and table spoons. Yes I know I'm just trying to figure something out I'm my own mind. I want to know how fish are being protected inadvertently in elevated levels of nitrite. Or are they? I'm sure that it's not as toxic as we think.
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Inadvertently - do you just mean their tolerance outside of some "protective" element?
It seems like it's alllll over the place for all species. So really hard to quantify.

What we really need to find out is - what are the long term effects of short term exposure. In the short term, high nitrites are going to make the fish "suffocate". We know we can protect them with a very low sodium chloride level. But if the nitrite goes away, is everything back to normal? Because we know that in a cycling situation everything is eventually going to be fine.
I see 1 ppm, 2ppm thrown out as dangerous levels but like you I want to know "why", what is specifically dangerous about these levels.
 
threnjen said:
Inadvertently - do you just mean their tolerance outside of some "protective" element?
It seems like it's alllll over the place for all species. So really hard to quantify.

What we really need to find out is - what are the long term effects of short term exposure. In the short term, high nitrites are going to make the fish "suffocate". We know we can protect them with a very low sodium chloride level. But if the nitrite goes away, is everything back to normal? Because we know that in a cycling situation everything is eventually going to be fine.
I see 1 ppm, 2ppm thrown out as dangerous levels but like you I want to know "why", what is specifically dangerous about these levels.
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Basically fish already have a background level of meth in their cells. Every species is different but let's say on average it's less than 10%.

Apparently fish have these reductase cells that reverse the production of meth from nitrite. Small amounts of nitrite the fish can combat and also the longer they are exposed to nitrite the more efficient these cells become. Obviously if this nitrite is too high then the balance is lost and meth takes over the cell.

But seriously, these tests were done on large catfish and salmonoids tench perch and carp.

There has already been discussion on how smaller fish of the same species are less susceptible. And the report on the danio shown miles less susceptibility than these fish. I think size and species that are naturally smaller are less susceptible to begin with.

The fish will and can reduce all levels of meth back to background if nitrite levels are decrease. I also thing O2 saturation is important too but we need to look at that more closely.

Long term effects are those really associated with no oxygen getting to the muscles/organs. I also read that less active a fish is or stressed the less effect the toxicity has on the fish.
 
Epsom salts-calcium chloride?

Calcium chloride is not what is needed in your test, correct?
 
threnjen said:
I think there is confusion about the source of the Chloride.

J Mcpeak mentions calcium chloride (Epsom salts) which increases the hardness and calcium content of the water, and probably raises pH.
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I see that at the bottom of that you mention its not on since epsom salt is use for magnesium sulfate
 
Right you are, at some point I got mixed up. I removed an incorrect reference to Epsom Salts as calcium chloride on P.3

Regardless, overall we aren't talking about calcium chloride or epsom salts as the protecting element. My overall point was just that the argument against calcium chloride was not really our proposal, as it's not sodium chloride which is the protective element we are suggesting.
 
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"For nitrite poisoning salt can impart protection to the fishes. This happens only if the salt content is such that the chloride ion’s concentration is about 30 times that of the nitrite ion concentration in the water. Typically, nitrite becomes toxic at about 0.1 mg/L. This means that the chloride ion concentration would have to be at least 3.0 mg/L. This concentration translates into one of about 5.0 mg/L of salt (NaCl is 60.66% chloride, Cl-); this is equivalent to 18.7 mg/gallon. A teaspoon of table salt is about 5.5 grams (or 5,500 mg); a teaspoon of table salt would be sufficient to protect fishes living in approximately 294 gallons of water ! A standard treatment of SeaChem Prime will typically provide enough protection."

That is from JmcPeak's link Blue Betta USA - The Use of salt

I wish it had references though, I'm hesitant to blithely believe things.
 
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