Tattered Fins On Fish

[hatessushi]

I did say "nitrates are a sign of degrading water quality" but I didn't say that as though they were a result of the water degrading. where in that statement did I say that nitrates were a result of degrading water quality? Nitrate are a sign that the water quality is degrading. Nitrates are a result of the nitrogen cycle and high nitrates are a "sign" the water quality is degrading. I said it correctly.
I also quoted Bob Fenner saying "A high nitrate reading almost assuredly means a build-up of other dissolved organic wastes and degraded water quality." which is what I based my statement off of.
In nature fish will sometimes display aggressive behavior when they are stressed, sick, injured or unhealthy. Lots of animals do for the same reasons including man. Nitrates help add to an unhealthy environment so therefore it is possible that a fish is displaying aggressiveness resulting in the tearing of others fins. Simple deductive reasoning but I could be wrong.
Have a nice day

 

[rbaldino]

Originally Posted by HatesSushi
I did say "nitrates are a sign of degrading water quality" but I didn't say that as though they were a result of the water degrading. where in that statement did I say that nitrates were a result of degrading water quality? Nitrate are a sign that the water quality is degrading. Nitrates are a result of the nitrogen cycle and high nitrates are a "sign" the water quality is degrading. I said it correctly.
I also quoted Bob Fenner saying "A high nitrate reading almost assuredly means a build-up of other dissolved organic wastes and degraded water quality." which is what I based my statement off of.
In nature fish will sometimes display aggressive behavior when they are stressed, sick, injured or unhealthy. Lots of animals do for the same reasons including man. Nitrates help add to an unhealthy environment so therefore it is possible that a fish is displaying aggressiveness resulting in the tearing of others fins. Simple deductive reasoning but I could be wrong.
Have a nice day

Your original statement made it sound as though nitrates were caused by - as in happen because of - degrading water quality. "Nitrates are a sign of degrading water quality" could be interpreted as "As water quality degrades, it produces nitrates." That would be somewhat inaccurate, as nitrate production is natural and encouraged. Allowing nitrates to build up would certainly have an impact on water quality. You could argue that high nitrates mean nothing more than they've been allowed to accumulate over a prolonged period and perhaps everything else is going fine. Bob Fenner's is certainly an educated opinion, but by no means is he 100 percent correct in all cases. Anyway, I think we both know what we're trying to say.
Being sick could cause the fish to act out, though in my experience sick fish haven't seemed capable of doing much of anything. They usually have trouble swimming, sit on the bottom, and generally waste away.

 

[hatessushi]

Don't you think it's possible that a fish could be sick and not show any real outgoing symptoms? Kind of like a person saying "I don't feel good" as a general statement but being a fish not feeling well we would not neccessarily know. Therefore maybe the only symptoms being its actions "aggressive, passive aggressive, passive, avoidance etc". As pure speculation couldn't the high levels of nitrates make the fish, "feel different or not feel well" for lack of fish symptoms terms, act like one of the above? We know nitrites and ammonia make a fish sick and die but even nitrites have to be high and symptoms take longer then with ammonia. And I know alot of times when a fish is sick that we don't neccessarity note the symptoms until the end stages when the fish is listing heavily or gasping for oxygen in the water. Jst a thought.

 

[rbaldino]

Originally Posted by HatesSushi
Don't you think it's possible that a fish could be sick and not show any real outgoing symptoms? Kind of like a person saying "I don't feel good" as a general statement but being a fish not feeling well we would not neccessarily know. Therefore maybe the only symptoms being its actions "aggressive, passive aggressive, passive, avoidance etc". As pure speculation couldn't the high levels of nitrates make the fish, "feel different or not feel well" for lack of fish symptoms terms, act like one of the above? We know nitrites and ammonia make a fish sick and die but even nitrites have to be high and symptoms take longer then with ammonia. And I know alot of times when a fish is sick that we don't neccessarity note the symptoms until the end stages when the fish is listing heavily or gasping for oxygen in the water. Jst a thought.
Yes, I think that's entirely possible, but would be out of the ordinary. We're all used to fish that are somewhat or extremely aggressive by nature, so I don't think there's any real need to look for another cause of aggression in this case.