lowering salinity
- Thread starter tjake68
- Start date
guitarfish
Member
Do you mean "anemones"? In order to kill ich, your SG needs to be 1.009, which will kill crabs, anemones, stars, etc. You can't do it in your main tank with all that stuff there. Read the FAQ at the top of this board, it discusses all these things in detail.
guitarfish
Member
Here's a quote from
ATJ's Marine Aquarium Site
Marine teleost fish (higher bony fishes) maintain their osmotic concentration at about one quarter to one third that of sea water. In normal sea water, these fish have a tendency to lose water from their gills due to osmosis and also in their urine. Fish have to drink a lot of water to make up for the loss, however, as the water contains a lot of salt (35ppt) they must remove the excess salt from their system. The sodium and chloride ions are secreted by the gills and magnesium and sulphates are excreted in urine. This is an active process and requires energy much like the energy required to keep warm blooded animals warm.
When fish are under stress, one of the processes that is affected is ion regulation. This means they have difficulty adjusting the concentration of ions (sodium, chloride, etc.). Lowering the salinity of the tank water makes the concentration of ions closer to that of the fish"s internal fluids and reduces the fish"s efforts to maintain the correct concentrations.
Please note that only the higher bony fishes have lower osmotic concentrations and can be treated this way. Marine invertebrates have the same osmotic concentration as the surrounding water (Schmidt-Nielsen, 1975) and if left in the aquarium during hyposalinity treatment are most likely to die due to osmotic shock. Sharks and rays may not survive hyposalinity due to their unique method of osmoregulation. They have similar concentrations of salts to that of marine teleosts (one quarter to one third that of sea water), however, they also have very high concentrations of organic compounds which gives their internal fluids the same osmotic concentration as sea water. While some can adjust to lower salinities, most will succumb to osmotic shock just like invertebrates.
ATJ's Marine Aquarium Site
Marine teleost fish (higher bony fishes) maintain their osmotic concentration at about one quarter to one third that of sea water. In normal sea water, these fish have a tendency to lose water from their gills due to osmosis and also in their urine. Fish have to drink a lot of water to make up for the loss, however, as the water contains a lot of salt (35ppt) they must remove the excess salt from their system. The sodium and chloride ions are secreted by the gills and magnesium and sulphates are excreted in urine. This is an active process and requires energy much like the energy required to keep warm blooded animals warm.
When fish are under stress, one of the processes that is affected is ion regulation. This means they have difficulty adjusting the concentration of ions (sodium, chloride, etc.). Lowering the salinity of the tank water makes the concentration of ions closer to that of the fish"s internal fluids and reduces the fish"s efforts to maintain the correct concentrations.
Please note that only the higher bony fishes have lower osmotic concentrations and can be treated this way. Marine invertebrates have the same osmotic concentration as the surrounding water (Schmidt-Nielsen, 1975) and if left in the aquarium during hyposalinity treatment are most likely to die due to osmotic shock. Sharks and rays may not survive hyposalinity due to their unique method of osmoregulation. They have similar concentrations of salts to that of marine teleosts (one quarter to one third that of sea water), however, they also have very high concentrations of organic compounds which gives their internal fluids the same osmotic concentration as sea water. While some can adjust to lower salinities, most will succumb to osmotic shock just like invertebrates.