Some strange acclimations

[Lynden]

A person that used to work at my LFS acclimated a ghost shrimp to saltwater. It is living very well, and fights a 60cm moray every once and awile, and the shrimp always wins. Soon after, the moray was placed in a fish only tank, and an African frog was acclimated(to saltwater). He also acclimated some damselfish(whose species I can't quite remember) to freshwater, but it kicked the bucket after about two and a half days. He said he just placed the animal in a tank and slowly added/diluted salwater over period of about a week, and their osmosis was ready.

What the hell?! The shrimp I can almost imagine, but a frog? It was the honest to goodness truth though, so, as as a side-project, I am acclimating a Betta Splendens to my marine setup.

 

[Navarre]

Ever put a frog in salt water? Its messy, real messy

As for the damsel.. it lasted 2 days? this is not a sucess, it just ment its internal organs finally collapsed. The shrimp.. possible but when it came to shedding its skin i would like to hazard a bet it died as the osmosis would suck it dry.

Just slowly increasing salt levels wont suddenly accimatise a fish to salt water. their internal organs work differently and they are designed to endure completely different environments. A fish that live in freshwater would not survive.

Even brackish water fish have to be treated with real care when changing their condition, you are going to try a fisj that doesnt even see salt water in its entire life! Yes they can breath oxygen so the lack of oxygen in the salt water wont harm it but this is where it ends. What you are proposing is cruel and will result in the death of the fish.

 

[fraservet]

only a few fish are capable of living in fresh and salt water.

the osmotic gradient will kill them fairly quickly.

a few species can live in both, but these have developed systems to cope with the change - generally very effective renal filtration.

please don't try any more experiments - it is needless cruelty.

 

[Lynden]

The guy told me that you can do a lot of things people say you can't do. He was shot down countless times, but now he has something you could call a "reef frog". His shrimp has been living for quite some time now.
Before my LFS had their marine tank, they had a brackish tank with a Hypostomus plecostomus. Catfish don't have scales, so how could this animal have lived in there? To make room for the marine tank, they placed some archerfish in a freshwater, they were fine for months, and were sold eventually.

I completely loathe people who torture animals for whatever reason, and to avoid completely despising myself, I will never try any of these horrendous expiriments again.

Thank you for helping me relize this mistake.

 

[Christs_Knight]

Correct me if i am wrong
But plecs have very strong scales.

 

[bunjiweb]

Some of the info in this thread is complete and utter bull####.

And ass for acclimatising a betta to salt water, what the f*** are you doing? Get a f***ing grip and don't put an animal through unecessary cruelty because you want to see what "might" happen.

Bloody idiots.

Ben

 

[supersam]

thank you bunjiweb, you took the works right out of my mouth.

 

[Navarre]

Whilst i was trying a diplomatic responce in a manner that would get the point across i found that is was already done .. a bit blunt but to the point and captures the thoughts of most f us here i think

 

[bunjiweb]

sorry that my previous post may not have not used politically correct wording but how else can i truly state how stupid this whole idea is.

If a fish isnt able to use what is called "osmosis" it will not be able to live much longer than a few hours. Osmosis is where water (or salt water) is passed over a semi-permeable membrane and comes out the other side as pure water. Sharks use it in the sea to get pure water, and it also explains why some sharks such as the Tiger shark is able to swim up river and take a snack on an unsuspecting holiday maker!

Your betta is certainly not able to do this, thus meaning it WILL die. The idea of trying to do the reverse is just as bad.

Ben

 

[Lynden]

Exept for Navarre( and i dont mean this topic), there is know one on this entire forum that has told me something I did not already know. Believe me, I am no newbie, and I knew all about they way fish balance their bodily chemicals long before I registered here. I forgot momentarily because of this miraculous and 300% true thing that happened awhile ago. I have done a few pretty retarded things in the past, but all of those were soon corrected. And, plecs do not have scales, they have bony scutes which protect them from attacks, and like absolutely every species of catfish, they have no scales. These scutes do not protect them from any type of chemical or pH difference in the water. Do you have any idea why they tell you not to give certain medications to catfish? Its because they have no scales. You can look it up in any good book. And I hope that all of you know this, because if you guys don't know this simple fact, then perhaps I should ask someone who is capable.

And Bunjiweb, Like, what the f*** are you saying??!! Don't you read the last post before you respond to a forum??!! Didn't you at least glance at the last part??!! Please, before you go insulting me, you should at least read what I did. Navarre reminded me of how bad this was, and I thought I made that clear enough. And, by the way bunjiweb, thats not how osmosis works in animals. That's reverse osmosis. All fish have Osmosis, and would die without it. Let me explain it. In freshwater fishes, Osmosis works because the salt content in the animals blood is higher than the water around it, and the semi-permeable membrane(the animals skin)draws in water. The kidneys process this into a weak urine, that comes out of the body along with a little salt. If this does not happen, the fish will literally inflate with water. The animal replenishes the salt with the food it eats. Marine animals have the opposite problem, and the salt outside the body is higher than the level in the body, drawing pure water out. Marine fish must constantly drink in order to replenish pure water, or else, the saltwater will suck it dry. Excess salt is passed out in an extremly concentrated urine, which is one reason marine tanks tend to have more ammonia in them than freshwater.

I pulled that out from my head. I have photographic memory. I remember things really well, nearly everything ive read or seen I can remember. The point im trying to make here is that I am not a newbie,
so please do not treat me like one. Im sorry if i have offended anyone.


Thank you for reading, and trying to help me. ChestnutMoray55.

 

[Lynden]

And about the cruel expirment thing, even though I quit my expiriment(because i cant stand to see animals hurt), how would we have these fish if no one ever tried anything new? How would we have any technology right now if no one ever tried anything?


Please do not beat the living hell out of me, or any other innocent, curious person, whenever they try something new. Don't prevent people from breakthroughs. Ya never know, you could be calling someone a moron, idiot, f*** up, or animal torturer one day, and then seeing them on the news making millions the next.

 

[fraservet]

ok, I agree that Bunjiweb's post was a bit unnecessary after you had already said you had stopped your "experiment" and realised it was a bad idea.

Chestnut Moray, please don't jump down the throat of people like Christs Knight, whose post was in no way inflammatory, and was really a reasonable thing to suggest - these bony plates can often be called scales even though they may technically be scaleless fish.

Anyway, just because they don't have scales as such, they still have a membrane covering their body which will act as a barrier (i hesitate to use the word "skin", but essentially this is a good comparison). While the lack of scales means they can have problems with medications like you say, I would think the membrane would not be any more permeable to salts etc. than fish that do have scales.


Also, putting a brackish water fish like the Archer into fresh water is a world away from putting a purely freshwater species into sea water.

I'm all for people trying new things, but only once proper research has been done, and avoiding use of live animals until the late stages when you have made sure the risks to the animal will be minimal.

 

[Christs_Knight]

I think that most of his post are unnecessary...

Sorry mate, i thought they were scales, you learn new thing everyday.

 

[Navarre]

Ok..
I think everything that needs to be said to each other has been said. Other that sugested the idea of this experiment are now in agreement that the idea is wrong so we can agree that lessons have been learned here. Those that felt this idea was bad have let things off their chest and made their points clear and considering the experiment has stopped and wont happen there is no need for further points of view to be put across.

So all in all i think we have all learnt/achieved a result here.

 

[bunjiweb]

I was not talking about reverse osmosis, i was talking about marine fish. I was not fully understanding of how freshwater do it, as i hadnt bothered to go and copy/paste it off a fish site...

I stand by my original statement, and alot of that was also aimed at your LFS employee. He sounds like either a bulls***er or an idiot.

I think if we are going to take things from the wild we should leave them as they are, as nature intended. Same goes for hybrid breeding, if its not for the welfare of the fish i'm not interested (although people can do what they please!)

Ben