What does brackish mean

[thatmagicguy]

Hi Venus.

"Close, but no cigar; I'm thinking you may have confused nitrites with nitrates."

Not sure what you meant here. I wasn't confusing the two. I was talking about nitrItes. NitrItes are far more toxic than nitrAtes and the condition called methemoglobinemia in fish is caused by nitrItes. It is often referred to as "brown blood". NitrAtes in fish tanks are far less toxic and are kept under control through regular partial water changes among other methods.


Regarding ich. Yes of course fish can recover from an infestation without intervention. More often outbreaks occur due to stress from falling temperatures, elevated ammonia and nitrites, the addition of new fish, all of which cause stress and a failure to produce an adequate slime coat to protect from free swimming ich. If these problems are corrected the fish can and do recover frequently when the ich falls off. They recover their slime protection and the new swimmers that hatch out later cannot reattatch in any appreciable numbers.

Outbreaks occur because aquarists are not observant enough to see the initial infestation which is usually very small in numbers and when these fall and subsequently hatch out into the massive swarms of swimmers it is then that the bad infestation is noticed.

The reason heat works is not because heat kills ich. Heat lessens the time ich is on the fish, thereby causing less damage and the fish can then recover it's protective slime coat. All of this scenario has been bore out time and again in my lab experiments.

Medications made up of formalyn and malachite green do work. They kill the free swimming ich. But in the process they quite often leave the fish further stressed and often reinfestation occurs.

So regarding your statement, "As for ich; I can't imagine ich would ever go away on its own; even under the best water conditions.", that's okay. But the facts again, do bear out that if a fish is allowed to recover it's slime coat adequately they will fight off a reinfestation. And the ich will once again be reduced to manageable numbers. And often it is simply a matter of bringing the initial cause under control, which is usually a drop in temperature, elevated ammonia and nitrites, and the stress from adding new fish or moving a fish.

Bill

 

[thatmagicguy]

Just to bring this nitrite poisoning/subject to a more narrow level, the chloride in the salt is said to prevent the nitrites from being absorbed into the gills. And this claim on a molecular level is based on the chloride ion being at least three times and not more than six times the level of the nitrite ion to be effective in any way.

I wonder how many average aquarists have the means to measure the ratio of chloride ions found in salt as opposed to the ions found in nitrites?

So over 6:1 renders the chloride in salt ineffective. Under 3:1 is also ineffective.

I wonder if any of us have the means to measure this in our home aquariums to make salt a truly effective weapon against nitrites.

I prefer water changes. I also prefer preventing the nitrites from ever being that high by using reliable science to encourage the nitrogen cycle to occur at a stable and measurable rate, as opposed to arbitrarily dumping household ammonia and dead shrimp into a tank.

Bill

 

[Venus]

Obviously, I have no way of proving anything to you or anyone else; not trying to prove myself right or you wrong; just enjoying a discussion on my favorite topic. Realize, I have absolutely no experience with any other fish except goldfish. My website; 'goldfish emergency.com' focuses purely on health related issues; mostly newbies with dying fish, so I'm fortunate to get a lot of practice.

Maybe you'll google nitrates to get the full story. Nitrates affect humans the same way, by cutting off oxygen supply to the blood. High nitrate levels are often found in rural farming communities from the heavy use of fertilizers.

My daughter's sister in law recently rushed her baby to the emergency room; she was turning blue, but seemed to be breathing just fine. Come to find out, the baby was suffering from high nitrate poisoning. The blue coloration in her skin was from oxygen deprivation in her bloodstream. They live in a farming community and the mom was using well water to mix powdered formula. Thankfully the baby recovered.

A common symptom found in goldfish related to nitrate poisoning; bottom sitting, is an effort made by the goldfish to equalize oxygen levels. The fish may exhibit bent positioning in the final stage; much like the scuba diver that swims in too deep of waters or surfaces too quickly develops a disorder called decompression sickness (DCS) better known as 'the bends' or caisson disease.

To my knowledge, the only known symptom that nitrite poisoning causes is clamped fins. Of course the toxin has been known to kill a number of fish, but death isn't really a symptom. Nitrites do not cause bottom sitting or bent positioning. This, in my opinon is the common demoninator.

Obviously I find nitrates much more interesting than ich; the reason for this? Ich is easily cured with a salt treatment. Ich really isn't dangerious to goldfish health unless it goes untreated for an extended length of time; whereas; there is no known cure for nitrate poisoning; which is very commonly found in established set ups. At this time my treatment for nitrate poisoning is bathing the fish in a deep and narrow tub (containing chlorophyll) much like a decompression chamber, but only after the nitrates have been gradually removed from the main tank.

 

[thatmagicguy]

The US government has standard regulations regarding the amount of nitrates in drinking water for the very reason you stated. Blue baby occurs too frequently in rural areas of our country. While in a discussion about this on a different forum it came to pass that we found out that our neighbor Canada has no national regulation regarding nitrate content in drinking water, it is left to local government and posters started testing their water supply and found ridiculous amounts of nitrate concentration in their water. Bummer.

To be fair, I wouldn't dispute the affects of nitrates on humans or fish.

Interestingly I thought you might like to read this from the Centers For Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga. < **Unless conditions exist for reducing nitrate to nitrite in the gut (i.e., high pH and proper intestinal microbial flora), ingested nitrate (NO3-) is metabolized and excreted without producing apparent adverse effects."***>

They go on to say, "Nitrate in the diet may even enhance host defenses against gastrointestinal pathogens by modulating platelet activity, and possibly even gastrointestinal motility and microcirculation,,"***

Now Venus, here is the clencher, and read this carefully ok?,,****The known toxic effects of nitrate exposure result from the conversion of nitrate to nitrite (22). The effects of nitrite (NO2-) are the same whether nitrite‑containing compounds are ingested or inhaled, or nitrite is produced in vivo from nitrate.****

Do you see? Nitrate is toxic when it is converted to nitrite. Exposure to nitrite in fish is far more toxic than exposure to nitrAte. And the reason NitrAte is toxic is because it is converted to toxic NitrItes.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

Bill

 

[Venus]

Nitrates are the third and final toxin to convert in the nitrogen cycle. Nitrites convert to nitrates not vice versa.

Yes, in the city drinking water is regulated, but in if you're on well water; nitrates can be a serious problem.

You're getting a little out of league with all of this scientific lingo, but I've several fish from my site suffer from nitrite poisoning; it's easily fixed as I stated before, but fish suffering from nitrate poisoning unless in the early stages are doomed.

At this point, I think we should just agree to disagree; I really enjoy bantering with you. How about swim bladder issues; that's a topic that most experts are quite clueless. What do you think?

 

[thatmagicguy]

I've done alot of necropsys and dissections of freshly dead koi and goldfish, and also many tropical fish that were exhibiting bouyancy problems. In most cases it was related to digestive tract infections. Often what happens is that the tract becomes impacted with something the fish ate. Many times this impaction becomes infected and the tissues in the areas become inflamed, puss filled, and the swelling puts pressure on and affects the swim bladder and it's ability to keep the fish bouyant.

Likewise a fish that simply has a blocked digestive path will sometimes show bouyancy problems.

Some fish have small sacs of gas that move air back and forth from the swim bladder to keep it inflated or deflated as needed. Other fish are able to move gasses from nearby tissues to do this. In either case it is out of the scope of most aquarists to differentiate whether it is a digestive problem or gas exchange problem other than treating and seeing if it gets better.

I believe most cases are a dietary problem.

I base this on seeing first hand in the fish that died the problem.

I have used epsom salts to great effect, but I would stand first in line to say that my doses are purely arbitrary. Epsom salts are a natural laxative that will help a fish move a blockage and thereby lessening the pressure on the swim bladder.

In tropical fish, bouyancy problems can usually be traced to feeding habits.

In funny shaped goldfish bouyancy problems are common. In every single dissection of freshly dead goldfish shaped like this I found infections in the digestive pathway that I feel contributed to the bouyancy distress.

On the other hand I have found koi and comets with both digestive tract infections and seemingly no problems. In the no problem cases I believe that something was impeding the gas exchange in and out of the swim bladder and most likely it was a water quality issue.

Bill

 

[eja206]

hi venus,
sorry to interrupt this discussion, which i have been reading with interest, but was just wondering what your goldfish website is? as i keep goldfish myself, and many more websites seem to be mostly about tropical fish (understandable as there are way more varieties!). keen to see your goldfish info! thanks.

 

[jsoong]

Nitrites do cause methemaglobinemia & is the reason for the symptoms listed. So Venus, Bill is not confused!

Nitrites are taken up by the gills and the uptake is blocked by Cl-. <That is chloride ions> There are many papers that demonstrated this, a quick Google turns up: <Note that this is not hobbyist opinions, but proper scientific papers.>
https://www.researchgate.net/public...ptake_for_non-teleost_Actinopterygiian_fishes
Nitrite Toxicity to Danio Rerio: Effects of Fish Age and Chloride Concentrations
http://cires.colorado.edu/limnology/pubs/pdfs/Pub079.pdf

I would draw your attention to the last one, which is a review of over 40 papers, and gives a detailed description of nitrite poisoning & its interaction with various ions & fish species.

As for salt & ich, I have no scientific paper to show you LD50 & salt concentration. All I have is other people (& mine) experience using salt to treat ich. I have successfully treated ich at 0.3% salt in goldies. I have salt dipped goldies up to 0.9% NaCl & there appeared to be a reduction fo cysts. It is possible that the ich you are experimenting with is salt resistent. <Indiscriminate use of salt had selected out some strains of ich that is immune to salt at over 1%.> But until I have proof otherwise, I will still use salt as first line of treatment for ich & other ecto-parasites.

 

[jsoong]

So over 6:1 renders the chloride in salt ineffective. Under 3:1 is also ineffective.
Bill

I see more posts while I was composing my last one!

Bill, where did you get the data that said over 6:1 renders Cl- ineffective in preventing NO2 poisoning? According to the reviews, there are at least 3 studies that show the protective effect of Cl- to be linear to its concentration. There is no upper limit reported.

 

[thatmagicguy]

I see more posts while I was composing my last one!

Bill, where did you get the data that said over 6:1 renders Cl- ineffective in preventing NO2 poisoning? According to the reviews, there are at least 3 studies that show the protective effect of Cl- to be linear to its concentration. There is no upper limit reported.

I was citing a study published in a 1998 paper I have from Perdue University.

The passage I was quoting went like this, **Treatment not only includes decreasing the population to decrease ammonia levels, but also adding a chloride salt (in the form of sodium chloride or calcium chloride) to the water. The level of salt needed to treat (<50 mg/1) is not toxic to freshwater fish. The chloride ion competes with the nitrite ion at the gills. When the chloride ion is present at least three times and not more than six times the level of the nitrite ion, it is preferentially transported across the gills.*********

It would seem at least that the colorado paper that you cite would beg to differ.

I won't dispute that.

I would like to do some research and cite the effects of salt on osmotic regulation and how adding salt in fish tanks plays havoc on that.

Bill

 

[Venus]

I'm throwing my hat in the ring. I'm just a little goldfish keeper, and you boys are scientists. I'll keep my nitrite and nitrate knowledge to what goes on in my fish tank, not my stomach, but I won't change my mind on which one is more dangerous to fish. Nitrite is a lamb; nitrate is the devil.

Bill, I'll get back to you shortly on the swim bladder issue.

eja206, you can visit my site at this address GoldFish Emergency 911

 

[CaptainAhab]

'Nitrite is a lamb; nitrate is the devil.'


I'm not sure science is behind you on that one.

 

[Venus]

Oh boy, here we go again. Somebody stop me. lol

I see very few goldfish die from ammonia or nitrite poisoning; very rare. All that is required for the fix is treated water. The symptoms, which are clamped fins, vanish within a few days after treating the water with no lingering affects.

The only fish that have died from this toxin were left in these conditions for an extended length of time; such as goldfish in bowls or a goldfish in a tank without filtration making it difficult if not impossible for beneficial bacteria to become established; such as folks that perform 100% water changes once a week for example. In this case the fish are poisoned slightly over a long period of time.

Nitrate poisoning produces the following symptoms listed in order of severity; lack of appetite; bottom sitting; twitching; bent positioning. Very few fish have survived nitrate poisoning, and the majority of these fish were in the early stages. To date; only one fish that I've treated has come back from bent positioning; the final stage. This bent positioning is due to lack of oxygen in the blood stream.

Unfortunately, the experts often misread these symptoms; if a fish is bottom sitting it has dropsy; if a fish won't eat it must have bacteria infection (or my favorite) if a fish is bent it has tuberculosis.

When nitrites climb to a level that could kill fish; it very quickly converts to nitrates as the tank completes it cycle. The only reason nitrite kills fish is because the cycle cannot complete. A couple of my own fish survived this very circumstance; the oldest is now 12yrs.

If I had to choose between two tanks for my own fish (which I'm quite fond of) one containing nitrites; the other containing high nitrates; guess which one I would choose?

I've had many members whose tanks cycled without them even having a clue about the nitrogen cycle. Somehow, these fish survived.

Not true with nitrate poisoning. Now maybe when nitrate levels climb dangerously high; somehow the fish takes it in through the gills and it converts back to nitrites, I don't know about this, but as far as I'm concerned, when your test results show high nitrates and the fish is sick; I'm calling it nitrate poisoning. That to me is common sense.

From what I've seen on goldfish related sites; most admin or mods are clueless to the symptoms of nitrate poisoning. Most believe nitrates are okay; and this is true, in small doses, but in established tanks, overstocked tanks, or when the goldfish keeper has become lax on water changes, and nitrates begin climbing in the range of 40 or 60; kiss that fish goodbye.

This is why we call nitrates 'the gentle giant'