pumping different gasses into a fish tank?

[krap101]

i was thinking, just wandering.. about my paintball gun and co2 and nitrogen. we pump co2 into a fish tank and it helps plants. what exactly would something like nitrogen do? i know if you breathe in a high concentration of nitrogen it drops your body temperature, (something about rbeathing underwater in a sub with nitrogen mixed in with the oxygen) what would it do to fish?

[hc8719]

despite the fact that 70% of the atmosphere is nitrogen, are bodies dont have a use for it, our bodies use the oxygen (for the krebs cycle i think) and blow everything else out, plus CO2.

if anything, nitrogen prevents us from breathing in too much oxygen

as far as the fish part goes, probably the same thing it would do to us, fish (from what i understand) breath in H2O, and tear the hydrogen from the oxygen, and (again from what i understand) and breath in almost 100% oxygen (after the hydrogen is torn off). opposed to us, out of all the air we breath in, only 20% is nitrogen.

fish are more sensitive to changes than us, as they are use to breathing in pure oxygen, (and probably some CO2, but not alot), and interupting that would mess them up

again, this is speculation

[JDogg]

fish extract the disolved oxygen in the water, they do not "tear apart" the bond between the hydrogen and oxygen in a water molecule (that would require way to much energy)

[Apocalypse_Gold]

Gills are just lungs turned inside out. Oxygen dissolved in the water diffuses across a membrane because of concentration differences. CO2 diffuses the other way. Our lungs must remain wet for this to happen.
Nitrogen gas has 3 covalent bonds so it is very hard to break apart and very unreactive. Diffusing more N2 into the water would do very little, but may make other gasses diffuse out of solution faster.

[hc8719]

actually just did an experiment like this in bio lab.

too much CO2 in the water becomes carbonic acid