Background

Ammonia

Ammonia is a toxic chemical that is found in many different places like aquariums, urine, and blood. Ammonia is also used in various house hold products such as fertilizer, plastics, and some explosives.  Ammonia is made in the nitrogen cycle, when atmospheric nitrogen is industrially fixated into the chemical form NH₃. It’s highly toxic for fish so it should be regulated as low as possible for aquariums. This process inside of the Nitrogen cycle is called Fixation. Ammonia’s melting and boiling point is -77.7 degrees Celsius and -33.5 degrees Celsius. Ammonia is also found in urine. Almost everything living on the Earth needs some form of Nitrogen. So Nitrogen is found inside of every organism on Earth. Nitrogen creates Ammonia therefore, ammonia builds up inside of the system. Ammonia is toxic so the build up needs to be flushed out, which happens in different ways but, the most common disposal method of Ammonia is urination, which is why Ammonia is found in aquariums with organisms living in it. Another way Ammonia can find its way into an aquarium is when organisms die or there is any decaying material that is present. Ammonia’s smell is very harsh and distinct from other smells. It is the main smell in urine. High pressure causes the ammonia gas to increase.  Ammonia is created by proteins especially in the liver and since ammonia is highly toxic it needs to be expelled by the body as soon as possible. Most organisms expel this chemical through urination.

Alisma

The biological name for alisma is alismatis orientalis or alismataceae. Alisma is a Japanese and Chinese herb that is used to help lower blood sugar, rid excess water through the urinary tract, vaginal infections, also for people who have obesity. Usually used by older men to help clear out the prostate glands and to improve urinary function. The part of the plant used is commonly the tuberous stem. The taste is mildly sweet, it is relatively safe, but can cause intestinal irritation when the herb is used for a long period of time. Using the plant when it is fresh and not dried out or put into a pill can be toxic though.  The edible part of the plant is the leaves and the roots. The roots must be cooked to be able to eat. They must be cooked very thoroughly or dried completely before entering your body. When you eat this plant fresh you can get “mad-dog weed” or rabies symptoms.  The idea of Alisma being utilized in the medical field as a primary source to reduce urinary tract infections is a new medical advancement, which can be used in many years to come, as a natural source of purification for the human body. You shouldn’t use this herb if you are dehydrated and/or cold all the time. This herb has a cold atmospheric energy and will usually cool your body down further. They are usually found in wet areas, often in standing water. Such as ditches, marshes, shallow water, lakes, and slow moving streams. The plants will self-sow very aggressively in a suitable setting. They grow very rapidly and can handle any living condition.  These plants are very sturdy plants and can last through freezing winters. This is an aquatic plant with floating leaves, leaves or elliptic or oval shape and approximately 1.25 inches to 8 inches. They are wide and sharply pointed. The flowers grow off the stems within a panicle and are approximately 4 inches to 21 inches. The petals are 1 millimeter to 2 millimeter long and pink, white, and yellow in color. The stems are smooth, obtusely three-cornered, and erect. Some stems are leafless and have only flowers on them and other stems have no flowers, only leafs on them. The flower stems extend above the leaf blades. They allow flowers to bloom after the leaves.

Blood-Sugar

Blood-sugar level is the amount if glucose in the blood. Glucose is a sugar that is in food that we eat and is also formed in our bodies and is stored. Glucose is the main source of our energy. The cells in our body use it and the cells transfer the energy by sending it through the blood stream.  Hyperglycemia is a technical term for high blood-sugar levels. Getting high blood-sugar levels can be when your body can’t make insulin or can’t respond to insulin correctly. The body uses insulin to help transport the glucose for energy. Without insulin the glucose builds up causing hyperglycemia. The symptoms of  hyperglycemia is dry mouth, thirst, frequent urination, urination during the night, blurry vision, fatigue or drowsiness, weight loss, and increased appetite. You may also experience nausea and vomiting. The blood-sugar level being to high can cause diabetes and many other serious injuries to different vital parts to the body, such as the kidneys. More reasons why you would have a high blood sugar level are the medications you take or the type of food that you eat or the amount of exercise you do. Your body will try to rid itself of the high amount of glucose by urinating a lot, flushing the body of the extra glucose. This will cause the person to be excessively thirsty, from losing so much body fluid. You can get type 1, type 2, and type 3 or gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes usually occurs when you become pregnant, but that only happens if you have diabetes to begin with. You need to be tested if you are pregnant with diabetes.  There are many tests that you can take to know if you have diabetes. There is 7.6% of people in the United States have diabetes. For the rest of the people in the world there are about 5.7 million people who haven’t been diagnosed yet. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed during childhood, but most people don’t get a hold of it until they are about 20 years of age. Type2 diabetes is more common than type 1 and is mostly found in adults. Your blood sugar level before meals should be 80-120 mg/dl, and at bed time your blood sugar levels should be 100-140 mg/dl. After eating it will cause your blood sugar level to rise but that is normal for all people and shouldn’t cause a panic if you check levels after eating. The exact cause of diabetes is still unknown some say it’s from genetics, viruses, or autoimmune problems. Blood sugar fluctuations cause more damage to kidney cells that steady state high blood sugar. Most studies link heart failure to blood sugar levels and are called pre-diabetic. If you don’t start eating the way your doctors tell you to there are a chance that your leg can be amputated.

Crayfish

Procambarus clarkii is the scientific name for Red Swamp Crayfish. Some common names for Procambarus clarkii are crawdads and crawfish. They are freshwater crustaceans that are often used for food or science experiments. They are originally native to the Gulf Coast and can now be found on every continent expect Antarctica and Australia. They resemble little lobsters. On average crayfish grow to 3 inches long and 1 tall. They are invertebrates with an exoskeleton called a Carapace that is covered with little knobby spines. They can’t grow much because of the confinement of their protective exoskeleton so, when they grow the exoskeleton falls off and they grow a new one. This process is called molting and crayfish do this several times throughout their lives.  Attached to the Carapace are four pairs of walking legs, its abdomen, head, a pair of long and short antennas, and a pair of Cheliped. Chelipeds are the main pair of claws that the crayfish primarily use for feeding, grabbing, and protecting themselves from predators and other crayfish. Attached to the abdomen are little swimmerets and at the end of the abdomen there are Uropods and a Telson. Their shell color depends on the contents of their diet. Crayfish are natural scavengers; they eat anything from decaying plant material to smaller animals and other crayfish. Crayfish can be found easily in any freshwater environment like streams, rivers, and swamps. They can live outside of water for a period of time as long as their bodies are damp. They usually only come out of the water to find a new source of water. Crayfish can borrow deep into the mud and create shelters. After creating a shelter in the deep mud they are hard to collect while being burrowed into the mud. It takes about a year for crayfish to reach reproductive maturity. When crayfish reproduce the eggs attach to underneath the female Carapace. The number of eggs crayfish varies from 10 to 800 eggs depending on their fertility, age, and size. The eggs stay attached underneath the Carapace until they are ready to hatch. They usually reproduce in the fall the earliest they mate is in the month of August. Crayfish need a pH of seven to eight inches in order to successfully reproduce. The time it takes for the eggs depends on the temperature of the water and can be anyway from 2 weeks to 4 months. For their respiratory system they breathe through gills. Crayfish can breathe in and out of water easily for certain amounts of time.  The crayfish excretion system includes a bladder of the antennal bland, pyloric stomach, digestive gland, and intestine. They have an open circulatory system which means that the blood is not only contained inside of the veins and blood vessels but, moves semi-freely. The blood flows through the system from the heart through the arteries and ends in the sinuses. Procambrus clarkii is a more hardy crayfish that can survive in different conditions which, is why it is an invasive species for nonnative areas. Crayfish is a popular and inexpensive bait for fisherman. Some crayfish are dropped into the water on accident and survive from predators and reproduce, then set off the natural balance of the local ecosystem. Crayfish are aggressive and well equipped scavengers and predators so they take rivals food and take over the native fishes spot on the food chain.

Dissolved Oxygen

Dissolved oxygen is the concentration of oxygen dissolved in water, expressed in mg/l or as percent saturation, where saturation is the maximum amount of oxygen that can theoretically be dissolved in water at a given altitude and temperature. Dissolved oxygen has to be single most important water quality factor. The oxygen dissolves at very low concentrations. Fish use the oxygen in the water as air in humans do. The deeper the water the less oxygen it has. If the oxygen level in the water gets between 2-3 ppm the fish are more likely to catch a disease. If the levels are to low fish can die from suffocation. Oxygen depletions are the most common way fish die. Usually the larger fish suffer more than the smaller fish; smaller fish tend to be hardier and don’t need as much oxygen. The optimum dissolved oxygen level is 5 mg/L for best efficiency of a healthy fish. The oxygen levels in a water source depend on the temperature and the amount of bacteria build up in the water. Depletion occurs often in the summer months because warm water doesn’t hold as much dissolved oxygen as cold water does. Depletion can happen when different pollutions enter the water such as, manure, septic tanks water waste, death or decay of organic matter, and excess fish feed. The primary source of oxygen is microscopic algae (phytoplankton) or submerged plants. Phytoplankton is a good source from an abundance of food and oxygen producing standpoint. Too much of the algae can cause depletion as well, by overcrowding the water and taking up space of the oxygen. The lack of sunlight can lead to oxygen depletion. The plants use the sunlight to produce oxygen by photosynthesis. Plankton can also die from low oxygen levels too. Warm water on top and cold water below can lead to temperature stratification and can cause low oxygen levels and depletion in the water. Oxygen can be added from many different sources. Theses sources are direct diffusion from the atmosphere, wind, wave action, and photosynthesis. Oxygen produced by photosynthesis is made up every day. When the sun shines on the plants in the water photosynthesis occurs, that’s when the plants produce the oxygen. Oxygen levels drop during the night because; the plants aren’t going through the photosynthesis cycle. This cycle is called a diurnal oxygen cycle. It’s on a 24 hour basis. A way to tell if depletion is happening is if fish swim at or near the surface gulping air, fish suddenly stop feeding, a rapid change in water color to brown, black, gray, a putrid odor arises from the water, been an extended period of hot cloudy weather, and if there is a heavy summer wind and a rainstorm. To prevent depletion you can use aeration and also monitor the water source very carefully to make sure it doesn’t get below 4 mg/L DO.

Nitrogen Cycle

The nitrogen cycle is necessary for everything living on Earth. The nitrogen cycle produces nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, organic nitrogen, and atmospheric nitrogen. The first step is nitrogen fixation which is when atmospheric nitrogen N₂ gets to ammonium NH₄^+. This fixation occurs because certain types of Rhizobium fix the nitrogen through their own metabolic process.  The ammonia is then converted into the organic and useable form of nitrogen. This occurs when being taken up by nitrogen fixing bacteria. The organic nitrogen is then converted back into NH₄⁺ by having the organic nitrogen being used and getting ammonia as a byproduct which is then imputed into soil. The ammonia returns to the soil through decaying plant and animal matter. The ammonia is then consumed by decomposers like fungi and bacteria which are then transformed into nitrate, NO₃^-. The bacteria that take part in this process are microbacter. This process is named Nitrification. Nitrification is an aerobic process which means it requires the presences of oxygen. Then final step of the cycle is Denitrification. This process is anaerobic which means without oxygen. This process converts nitrate to the original start dinitrogen or N₂ in the atmosphere.

Marine Buffer

Marine Buffer is a soluble, white odorless powder. It is used to stabilize the pH levels in aquarium tanks. It is not flammable and is not explosive. It is usually very stable. The materials that should be avoided when using Marine Buffer are acids. It has no hazardous byproducts when decomposed. It does not polymerize so there is no hazards for that.

Tank Care

 Tanks should stay at between 6.6 and 7.4 for the pH level. The preferred pH level for freshwater tanks is 7.0, but there can be a little variation. The algae should be scrubbed off the side off the tanks regularly. Tank filters should be cleaned regularly also. The water should be changed every two months.