FISHIOLOGY

PH reading of the Black waters of the Marulioides Trengganu Variant swamp I came across a post discussing this topic today, or rather a group of hobbyist bragging that PH is not important when keeping Marulioides. So lets discuss on this matter shall we. Keeping your fish alive and keeping your fish to its optimum level is 2 different thing entirely. A true fish lover will research the species they intend to keep and respect the fundamental rules that nature had designed and its intention. The responsibility of an aquarist is to inherent the rules that was set on. A task he takes seriously before even deciding to placed the fish under his care.  Marulioides thrived on tropical swamp wetland. And tropical swamp waters are known as Blackwaters. Blackwaters are low in PH, low in dissolved oxygen, high in carbon dioxide. These are the characters of Blackwater.  Although there isn't any international fish police that had created any laws that says marulioides cannot be kept in PH7 ...

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. ...

My recent study of the Channa Marulioides variant Terengganu had got me really curious of this fish and I just have to see their natural habitat for myself of this very special variant  before all is gone. During my arowana days I kept wishing that I was there before the last wild golden Arowana was captured but it was a little too late for that. Too little was done by the authority to preserved the Arowana and it is now a sad history. For the Terengganu var I still have the chance and I will not let this get by. I'm sure many of you are just as curious to see the habitat as well. I spoke to a marulioides collector and explained that I was running a blog and I wish to document the variant's habitat before it goes extinct. After some negotiation they finally invited me for an expedition to Terengganu to document the habitat with a non disclosure agreement especially the exact location point, the capturing technique of adult maru and the baby maru. Also how they transport t...

The water of Terengganu peat swamp is amazingly soft, the measurement was taken in the monsoon season where the water is generally high. In the dry season the PH should be much lower and the water much darker in tannin.  TDS at 36ppm, in case you wanna know, Kuala Lumpur tap water is between TDS 50ppm - 70ppm. You will need to run an RO unit to achieve the natural TDS. Electric Conductivity is at 74us/cm, EC determines the inorganic dissolved solids examples: NO3, Fe, mg and so on. The reading for natural swamp should be in this range unless there are farming or industrial activity in the surrounding area. Tap water ec is around 60 - 90us/cm. PH is on the high side for black/peat swamp, most probably due to monsoon. Next year dry season will do another round of test to determine the average PH. Some of the Marulioides that did not survive, take note that not all Terengganu's are 9 or 11 bands.   Captured fries Different batch A...