FISHIOLOGY

I was really curious of how nature solved the ammonium spike, I've tried my best to duplicate swamp water with the extreme low PH and had ran into a snag. Ammonium spike! So again I've asked my collector for help to test the Terengganu swamp water for NH, NO2 and NO3.                               Shallow Area         Deep Area Ammonium                 1mg/1                 0.5mg/l Nitrite                          0mg/l                     0mg/l Nitrate                         0mg/l                   10mg/l  Shallow Test Deep area NO3 Deep area NO2 Deep Area NH3/4 Now this is interesting, I was expecting plans and trees would have absorb all the ammonium knowing that bacteria could not have survived in such harsh conditions but the reading is there, Ammonium is present in natural swamp water. Perhaps its the amount of decaying plant matter under water and the stagnant water that causes the ammonium spike. 

Marulioides keeping condition is really in the extreme range especially when we try to emulate the natural water condition as in the swamp. Swamp water is usually in the range of 3.5PH - 4.5PH in the dry season and around 5 - 6PH in the monsoon season. The ratio of fish and water volume in the swamp is much higher when compared to our enclosed aquarium and not forgetting they have large trees in the swamp to help tackle the nitrogen waste. As mentioned in my earlier post that when keeping marulioides in the range below PH4 everything remains stagnant including the poo. Bacteria seized to function in this range. Extreme low PH at 3.55 Fish waste will just remain as it is. I will need to increase the PH to around 4.5 by adding coral chip piece by piece to slowly increase to my target PH. And as the PH slowly increases you can see the poo slowly disappearing which indicate that the bacteria's are thriving again. Bacteria functions fine at PH above 6, anywhere l

This is the black tank pc from the first batch of wide bar type. CO2 was injected into tank last month and progressing.

This is the 4th pc from the second batch of multiple thin line type. This pc was kept in CO2 for a month and then seperated into its own tank. T5 low out put and PH4.5

One of my dream fish list had been fulfilled, The Diamond Back Sturgeon and Paddle fish. Sturgeon and paddle fish are cold water specimen and somehow they are surviving in 29ºC. I made sure there is not many fish in the tank to maximize DO (Disolved Oxygen) and maintain a PH of 7.5. They are all pellet trained, tips on training your paddle fish to pellet, first they take blood worm readily. Next you defrost your blood worm in a tablespoon and what you want is the bloody water. Soaked your pellet in the bloody water and your paddle fish will quite readily convert to pellet. They may reject in the first few attempt but be patience eventually they will turned.

Further studies in my research for the relation of carbon dioxide and peat swamp had lead me to more datas confirming this anomaly. Peat swamp or Black waters indeed are starved of oxygen and contains high level of Carbon Dioxide as I've suspected all this while. We take a look at the work of Dina Muthmainnah and Zulkifli Dahlan for the research paper of Biodiversity of lebak deling swamp in Pampangan Indonesia. http://www.innspub.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/JBES-Vol6No6-p324-333.pdf In their research they have tested the black waters from multiple points and the water parameter shown below is of similarity from those that which I did with simple testing, not as sophisticated as I lacked the equipment in doing so The important aspect here is that it confirms that Black waters are indeed low in oxygen and abnormally high in carbon dioxide (CO2). The PH is similar at 4.5PH average and TDS an average of 24PPM which I recorded an average of 25PPM at Terengganu swamp.

Channa Marulioides is the chameleon of the fish, they are the champion when comes to color changing abilities. In a split second they can change from greenish brown to yellow and to orange. They can change their eye color from black to bright red. Observe your Channa Marulioides and you can see they greet you with bright yellow colors doing the maru dance, they flashes their bands to the highest contrast. The body colors are intense and their eyes bright vampire red in colors. When they are tone down and just swim about their business you notice the color is dull when they are in mid water, and suddenly sinking to the bottom with bright orange (depending on the var and PH) they keep changing and flashing their bands and patterns. But the black and white flowers will remain so in whichever mood they display. Also take note that maru shows their best colors mostly at midnight. Each Channa Marulioides comes in its own unique pattern of bands and flowers, like a fingerprint, I beli