On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 06:09:49 GMT, Emily <franabulax.TakeThisOut@acm.org> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I am hoping somebody on this group may be able to point me in the right
>direction.
>
>I am doing a high school research project that involves keeping
>some fish (specifically, Siamese Fighting Fish). The one that I bought
>comes in a small plastic container, with some apparently "special" gravel
>at the bottom of the tank that I gather is somehow impregnated with
>nitrifying bacteria.
If the gravel was dry packed it's a bunch of nonsense - it isn't
impregnated with anything but dust. If it was damp, then it's
certainly possible - though the bacteria don't last terribly long and
in a bowl you'll never really see a cycle take place.
>Now my question is about the gravel (I need to discuss an innovation for
>my research report). Has anyone heard of such bacteria-impregnated gravel?
>Where can I look to find out more about it, such as who invented it and
>when, how is it made, and what its properties, advantages and
>disadvantages are? I asked the people who sold me the fish and they were
>strangely evasive -- presumably because they don't want anyone cutting in
>on their business.
They were evasive because they either didn't know what they were
talking about or knew full well that it doesn't do anything.. Trust
me, I do fish retail. :)
If you want to cover an innovation, you might want to look at a piece
of aquarium technology that doesn't claim to perform miracles - for
one, it will work, and most importantly, you'll be able to gather data
on it.
A couple technologies you might find interesting:
Hagen Bio Max. It's a ceramic filter media that you put into your
filter.. It's constructed so that each piece has around 40 square feet
of surface area and is about the size of an olive. It provides a huge
amount of surface area for a small space and for smaller filters and
heavy bio loads you will find that your filter can do double time. I
only suggest Bio Max because Hagen is notoriously open about their
stuff and you could probably even phone and talk to somebody about it
further.
Fluidized bed filters. It's essentially a sand filter. Like Bio Max,
you pack a huge amount of surface area (picture nearly compacted sand
- that's a lot of surface) into a small canister. You keep the sand
bed fluidized by running a water stream through it to keep it churning
slightly. Again, a clever innovation in aquarium technology.
Unfortunately, both of these are for larger tanks and don't really
relate to betta splendens.
If you want something that relates to being able to keep bettas, maybe
just examine the dechlorinator that you can buy.. Aqua Plus, Aqua
Safe, Stress Coat, Fritz Guard, you name it... They all chemically
react with tap water to neutralize most heavy metals and chlorine and
make the water safe for fish. Beyond that, they often contain a slime
coat "regenerator" which helps the fish rebuild a slime coat after
losing any due to stress or being netted. The main active ingredient
is sodium thiosulphate, and if you Google that you'll find lots of
info. It's essentially a chemical application but it does combine
keeping fish with modern water treatment.
Worth a look, anyways.
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