The Management of Water Quality (水質管理)
The way to build up a good water quality
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When the fish tank is in a good condition, the bubble from the air pump or filter system will disappear in a second. When the water is in a poor condition, there will be many bubbles on the water surface, and also there will be many fine bubbles in the water are continuous. This could affect your visual effect.
What is Nitrobacter? It is a heterotrophic bacteria, is not a kind of bacteria, but is a general term of various bacteria.
The anaerobic bacterium that can decompose organic molecules in the water, such as residual feed and dead organisms. What about Nitrobacter? Are they exactly alike? Nitrobacter can decompose toxic substances and remove odors. However, while they decompose it will make the water quality become better. The photosynthetic bacteria can’t reproduce itself, which is not discussed in this article. At the filtration system middle-level, coarse filter cotton commonly used by many people. Which means that coarse filter cotton will filtrate feces and other toxic substances and odors, and this will create a nice habitat for Nitrobacter growth and reproduction.
So, what is the filter materials function? How many filter materials do we need? How we differentiate a good or bad material? First of all, we will start discussing the function. The filter material can divide into two types which is normal filter material and culture filter material. Normal filter material is just filter cotton that places on replaceable part of filtering dirt, and porous object is like a bacteria house for producing good bacteria so we call it as a culture filter material. Later, it was found that a piece of coarse porous cotton or spiral structure filter cotton can be placed in the middle layer of the filtration system, which can make bacteria adhere and Nitrobacter will decompose that fish excreta that release toxic substances (ammonia, etc) as their nutrition. Finally, the whole piece of porous material will be attached full of good bacterial, and there is no need to replace it. The only need to replace is the physical filter cotton. If the bacterial is in a good condition even that the middle layer of the cotton can also replace the bottom filter material.
So, what is the filter materials function? How many filter materials do we need? How we differentiate a good or bad material? First of all, we will start discussing the function. The filter material can divide into two types which is normal filter material and culture filter material. Normal filter material is just filter cotton that places on replaceable part of filtering dirt, and porous object is like a bacteria house for producing good bacteria so we call it as a culture filter material. Later, it was found that a piece of coarse porous cotton or spiral structure filter cotton can be placed in the middle layer of the filtration system, which can make bacteria adhere and Nitrobacter will decompose that fish excreta that release toxic substances (ammonia, etc) as their nutrition. Finally, the whole piece of porous material will be attached full of good bacterial, and there is no need to replace it. The only need to replace is the physical filter cotton. If the bacterial is in a good condition even that the middle layer of the cotton can also replace the bottom filter material.
There are usually have two kinds of Nitrobacter on the market, which is liquid and powder. Liquid bacteria are a living bacterium, it means that Nitrobacter has limited time to live so that consumers must pay attention to the expiry date before purchase a dead bacterium. Powder bacteria are put into a dormant state by freezing technology, it will be active after half day of contact with water, and can be preserved for a long time.
The question is how to maintain a balanced microbial population system? Is easy, for example, once the water is under hypoxia nitrate will start nitrate reductase, this process will produce hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide is a harmful substance that will cause your fishes sickness. After research shows, by putting 『water goblins』 can prevent the lack of bacterium problem. It is because of the adsorbed cotton grows bacteria, which is particularly efficient. Other than that, the top filter system will do better, is because once the water flows through back to the fish tank, the water will contact to the air and brings more oxygen to the fish tank. Therefore, this may help to increase the DO (dissolve oxygen). And so, is popular to pump air into the filter media to strengthen the oxygen, this may also help to increase the DO of the water. Generally, it takes 10 hours for Nitrobacter reproduce to an amount that can balance of ammoniation and nitrification, so that the nitrite and ammonia produced by fish can be rapidly decomposed and the system will maintain balance, which is called “Ecological Balanced Microbial Population System”.
A good healthy fish is coming from the establishment of nitrification system. If the harmful substances such as NH3 NO2 and NO3 are not been metabolize, fishes will appear inactive although it will not kill the fish immediately. But if the accumulation of the harmful substances will be threatening to the fish. The fish tank is simulated to the natural environment, in addition to the good filter system, also need enough water flow to increase DO, to maintain the good water quality. The most suitable pH environment for nitrification is between a pH of 6.5 – 8.5. GH is the cation ratio of magnesium and calcium. KH stands for the hardness of the water, the lower the concentration of KH, the water quality is easy to become acid due to the CO2, so the stabilizing of the KH can stabilize the pH value.
The organic molecules such as residual feed, a dead microorganism that can produce a huge amount of ammonia. Nitrobacter is by nitrification reaction to break down this produced ammonia, which is why Nitrobacter is important in a fish tank. So, what is the nitrification reaction? Nitrification reaction is changed from NH3 and NH4+ to nitrite, then to nitrate, and finally to nitrogen and oxygen. Without these chemical reactions, the water quality will be extremely poor. However, can the complete nitrification reaction and filtration system avoid changing the water? The answer is no! There are some trace elements and minerals in the water that need to be replaced regularly. If the water is not changed for a long time, these substances will be lacking. Therefore, we can’t use RO water to keeping fish. So, how much water to change, the author thinks it should be evaluated according to the number of fish and the amount of water in the fish tank. If the nitrification system works normally and only have a few fish inside, the water can be changing once a month. Arowana is very tolerant fish, is fine to change half of the water once. In the meanwhile, the bacterium that attached to the biofilter will not break down during the water change. Sometimes the water presents turbid, this is because of the bottom sand dust, undifferentiated feed residue debris, algae, bacteria, minerals, etc. When starting a new tank with bottom sand this will cause a serious turbid problem after entering the water. This is because bottom sand had some tiny dust due to the process of manufacturing and transportation so that the tiny dust will be suspended when encountering water. Over time, it should be slowly precipitated, or it will be covered by biofilm formed by bacteria and sink to the bottom of the tank. Bacterial turbidity often occurs when bacteria are added to the new tank, cause too much of bacteria are used, the amount of filter material in the biofilter layer is insufficient, the nutrient content in the water is increased, the nitrification system is unstable, water is changed too frequently, and sometimes using medicine will also damage the nitrification system. When the amount of bacteria is too much, and the living space is insufficient for the bacteria it will occur bacterial turbidity. The way to solve this kind of problem is by adding UV light (Ultra Violet Light) or add more high-quality Nitrobacter, after a while will the result will be clean and thorough. There is also a case of water quality that is too sticky, which makes the bubbles in the water surface not easy to break, which is caused by the imbalance of substances. At this time author will change half of the water and adds Nitrobacter in it. Is that any arrangement filter materials to achieve the maximum effect and how much does it take? The author thinks that it is impossible to calculate the dosage because of the different surface area of the material and filter material. Therefore, the author advises that the filter material should be put in the limited space as much as possible and make the filter material maximize the effect of the bacteria culture. So how to maximize the effect of the filter material? The author’s answer is: “let the water flow through each filter material” and “pump air into the filter material”. As for why we need to pump air into the filter material, as mentioned above, good bacteria are usually aerobic, and a good Nitrobacter are aerobic bacteria. Therefore, giving more air will increase its reproduction and growth. Recently K1 filter material is much popular because of the good cultivated aerobic bacteria, which can increase the rate of production of beneficial bacteria.
After above several points that related to stable filtration circulation system, another one that is often overlooked is the water flow. Many people tend to have problems such as water quality deterioration problem after a period of cultivation, and they can’t solve the problem. The reason is the insufficient volume of filtration. This will cause the total amount of the decomposition is insufficient and the harmful substance will keep on the increase so the water quality will always deteriorate. At this time, must increase the water flow through to the filtration system. Remember do not continue to keep doing medicine treatment for the fish, this will cause that fish gain antibody. And also every time the medicine is applied, it will slowly destroying the circulatory system by the time the circulating water system must be rebuild again.
Once to the season’s change, the bacteria in the different thermophilic layer can’t adapt and die, resulting in more dead bacterial bodies in the water. Even the strong differences in temperature day and night will also cause continuous dead bacterial. If there are many bacterial bodies in the water, it is easy to grow mold, which is hard to see by the naked eye, and the Nitrobacter will also change with the water quality. Besides, there is less rain in winter, so the microbial turbidity is higher, so the water quality problems often occur in seasons when changing, even if the tap water has been sterilized, it still can’t eliminate a large number of bacterial corpse pollution. Moreover, if there are too many bacterial bodies, the water quality will easily induce the breeding of a variety of bad bacteria. So how to prevent this kind of problem when seasons change? The answers are to reduce changing water, adding Nitrobacter, increase the temperature to have a good immunity system. Although anti-bacterial will also weaken their function, stable nitrification is the best way to prevent the deterioration of water quality.
It’s an old common sense among players that change water without changing filtration cotton or change filtration cotton without changing water. However, is it true? Well, this kind of concept doesn’t matter which one is right or wrong, but why? This is because the core of this concept is to avoid completely changing all the old bacterium in the fish tank. However, many players do not understand that bacterium in biofilter media and filter cotton are different. The bacterium that in biofilter media mostly is Nitrobacter which is detoxification. But the bacterium that from filter cotton is decontamination type which is decomposed organic molecules. The proportion of bacteria floating in the water is very small. Bacteria can only be decomposed when the water flow through the filter cotton and the biofilter media.
Because of bacteria lives in both of this media, not a floating life. This means that changing cotton and changing water is different things, which is filter cotton must change separately. This can avoid that water had not enough organic molecules for some bacteria to decompose. If all the filter cotton is changed at the same time, even if there is no changing water this will make the bacteria regenerate. The bacteria can form withing 24 hours, but there are not enough organic molecules to allow the bacteria to reproduce in large quantities, and soon the bacteria that form in 24 hours will die and will cause the deterioration of water quality. The frequency of changing water depends on the stability of the filtration system and the amount of fish in the tank. If the amount of fish in the tank is large, the ammonia will be high. If the filtration system is stable, the frequency of changing water can be reduced, normally once a month. However, it should be pay attention to seasons change, because bacteria in different thermophilic layers will die and the microbial bodies in the water will pollute the water quality. Therefore, the author suggests that if Arowana keeper must have a water storage and a heater. The water exchange rate is one third to half of the amount of water in the fish tank and slowly add new water from the water storage. This is the safest way!
Because of bacteria lives in both of this media, not a floating life. This means that changing cotton and changing water is different things, which is filter cotton must change separately. This can avoid that water had not enough organic molecules for some bacteria to decompose. If all the filter cotton is changed at the same time, even if there is no changing water this will make the bacteria regenerate. The bacteria can form withing 24 hours, but there are not enough organic molecules to allow the bacteria to reproduce in large quantities, and soon the bacteria that form in 24 hours will die and will cause the deterioration of water quality. The frequency of changing water depends on the stability of the filtration system and the amount of fish in the tank. If the amount of fish in the tank is large, the ammonia will be high. If the filtration system is stable, the frequency of changing water can be reduced, normally once a month. However, it should be pay attention to seasons change, because bacteria in different thermophilic layers will die and the microbial bodies in the water will pollute the water quality. Therefore, the author suggests that if Arowana keeper must have a water storage and a heater. The water exchange rate is one third to half of the amount of water in the fish tank and slowly add new water from the water storage. This is the safest way!
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