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.