Koi Carp info thread

[aughie]

"Ammonia is the major excretory product of bony fishes and immature amphibians like tadpoles. In aquatic organisms, ammonia is removed from the body by the gills. Very little passes through the kidneys. The loss of ammonia through the gills of freshwater fishes is beneficial for two reasons: 1) the compound is rapidly carried away from the animal by the water passing over the gills; and 2) the ammonia is converted to ammonium that is exchanged for Na+ which is needed by the animal to maintain bodily activities."

Off topic but...Some people would say a reverse flow venturi protien skimmer is good for removing dissovled solids in marine tanks. There are many ways to go. If there aren't many fish to feed wastes don't accumulate. DS that does percipitate out can be vacummed up.

Edited May 4, 2005 by aughie

[aughie]

So the ammonia ends up as ammonium nitrate or ammonium chloride as the fish take up the sodium ion?

[chownah]

Bkkmadness, for all practical purposes ammonia and ammonium are the same thing. Ammonia is a chemical compound which comes in the form of molecules. Ammonia molecules are very reactive....they are not stable and readily change to their ionized form called ammonium. You don't normally see ammonia in the natural environment....you see ammonium ions. People just say ammonia because its more commonly understood. The household product called ammonia actually has ammonium ions in it....not ammonia. Lay people usually don't differentiate between the two....but scientists do. Anyway....to say that plants can not take up ammonia is not correct because the ammonia in the water is in the form of ammonium....which according to the internet write ups I mentioned can in fact be taken up by most plants. Aughie mentioned symbiotic algae in clams and corals feed on ammonia (ium)...these are plants

Aughie, I'm not a chemist but I think that the ammonium ion will just sort of float around in solution and associate with all the negative ions in the water and not really produce a compound like ammonium nitrate or ammonium chloride........I took some chemistry a long long time ago so if there are any chemists out there please set me straight if I'm wrong on this.

Also, on the subject of filters......do you ever use slow sand filters in ornamental fish ponds. This would just be a big tank filled with sand. Water would be added at the top and withdrawn at the bottom. I've got one of these (constructed by a local) for our water supply. It works really good. It takes out a really obvious bad odor and the red stuff which would get on our clothes. Its made with a back flush system so cleaning is really easy. The water is cleaned by little critters that live on the surface of the sand. It took about a week or so for them to move into the sand and start working....but it works really reallly well.

Cheer,

Chownah

[stevemarkwell]

"I don't want to bicker, but plants definitely do not consume ammonia -- they can only take in nitrate. This is a well established scientific fact. ......."

I think you are mistaken here. If you are correct then the agriculture scientists at Mississippi State University, North Carolina State University, and the University of Edinburgh will be really interested in finding this out. Scientists at these universities have directly stated on the internet that plants can uptake ammonium (which is the ionized from of ammonia).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Do you have the links? I'd like to read them and get my info straight.

[chownah]

"I don't want to bicker, but plants definitely do not consume ammonia -- they can only take in nitrate. This is a well established scientific fact. ......."

I think you are mistaken here. If you are correct then the agriculture scientists at Mississippi State University, North Carolina State University, and the University of Edinburgh will be really interested in finding this out. Scientists at these universities have directly stated on the internet that plants can uptake ammonium (which is the ionized from of ammonia).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Do you have the links? I'd like to read them and get my info straight.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here's the links:

http://msucares.com/pubs/infosheets/is0767.htm

http://www.neuse.ncsu.edu/nitrogen/nh4.htm

http://helios.bto.ed.ac.uk/bto/microbes/nitrogen.htm

I think I googled "nitrogen cycle" to get these. They were the first 3 university related web pages that google found.

Chownah

[aughie]

"If I remember correctly this allows for anerobic bacteria to grow also."

Correction. The purpose of the heater at the bottom of the tank is to encourage oxygen laden water to flow through the the mud and to prevent anaerobic bacteria from taking hold in the substrate.

http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/full/277/16/13548

http://www.plantcell.org/cgi/content/full/11/5/937

It states that ammonium is taken up at a less energy cost than nitrate. So it is taken up first and quicker. Ammonium is also coverted by nitrobactor bacteria and taken up as nitrate. Can't say I understood much of it. I was looking for references to bacterial involvement within these studies. One study concerned ammonium transporters at the membrane level of plant root hairs. So I'd say ammonium is directly absorbed by plants as well as transformed by bacteria.

chownah-

A sand filter is similiar to the pea gravel filters bkkm and I were discusing in a pm. Only the sand being a finer grain filters out more particulate matter. This is why they need to be back flushed. they become clogged. Sand filters are both biological and mechanical filters. I've seen them used in large wholesale tropical fish operations. I believe sand filters will filter out cryptocaryonaisis, marine ich, and/or Ichthyophthirius, freshwater ich disease. Sand filters don't provide as much surface area for mechanical filtration as does a 12"x6" pleated canister filter.

"This is My World. " - Ajarn

AJ there is nothing like creating paradise at home. Nice waterfalls and ponds.

-a

Edited May 5, 2005 by aughie

[stevemarkwell]

This makes sense; according to the websites, most plants can take up ammonium or nitrate, but because the majority of soil ammonium is converted to nitrate by nitrifying bacteria, the plants end up taking up very little ammonium. According to this website, aquatic plants differ from most terrestrial ones in that they typically 'prefer' to take up ammonium directly. Shows how much I know.

Edited May 5, 2005 by stevemarkwell

[buadhai]

Mike's Tropical Pond Page

How I built an algae free pond. I used a deep "stream" filled with gravel as a natural filter. Never had any algae build-up problem during the seven years I had this pond.

[koidoi]

Though it's harder to stop the problem of green water of you pond is in full sun, it's worth remembering that another major factor that contributes to green water in a pond is the level of Nitrate that builds up.

Nitrate comes from the fish waste after the filter breaks it down from ammonia and hard to avoid in a pond.

If you add a lot of fast growing plants to your pond, you may be able to reduce this nitrate level significantly as the plants feed on it, eventually starving out the green algae that gives you the green water.

It's certainly a natural solution worth trying, unless you want to pay out for a UV light filteration system on the pond. Koi Carp will eat a lot of the plants in the pond, so if you use anything, I suggest you make sure they are fast growing plants, maybe Elodea if you can get it out here.

Not every pond can acheive the correct balance though, it's harder if you have more fish in your pond for a start.

When building the pond bear in mind Koi can grow quickly and to quite a size, so make sure there's plenty of room for them if you intend to keep them for a while.

BTW, I'm really envious of you, I miss my pond at the family house back in the UK, got some great Koi and other fish in there.

All you need is a good biofilter and to cover the pond with shade. The cost can be very cheap and you can diy too.

[RAZZELL]

Okay, here's the waterfall, and a close-up of the gunk/mold..

Any thoughts on how to get rid of the stuff? We did a bit of scrubbing today, and cleaned the pond, so the condition has improved a bit from it's previous all-black look... Still a long ways to go, it seems.

What about a pressure washer? If you're careful it won't damage the surrounding plants or stones.

RAZZ

P.S. Really enjoying this thread . I've just built a small pond/water feature back in the UK.

Edited July 22, 2009 by RAZZELL