Not on here often, so should apologize for that first lol.
But as an introduction, I am active on Reef2Reef as Gareth Elliott(i was tired when making the account, name went in username space lol). And have been keeping fish since I was a child, mostly freshwater from piranha to fresh water pipe fish.
While over thinking adding a shoal of the evansi anthais and how to reduce stress of an already difficult species in a copper qt; I started reading. Yes a bad idea. What I was reading was how copper toxicity works, how do we treat for humans with copper toxicity, could i apply this in qt.
What I finally settled on was diet as the how and GSH as the why. GSH is
glutathione-disulfide reductase an enzyme that is the primary method our body uses to deal with heavy metal poisoning that mode of action is a fenton reaction.(I am not a chemist so not going to try to explain in depth). Only that copper works in a similar manner to iron as far as toxicity.
Now I did more reading, dietary supplementation is inefficient at increasing tissue levels. But read that you can use the amino acids its made from(sulfur aminos), to cause the body to create GSH.
The experiment:
Now since I was using human studies as an analog for fish I did not want to just hope this would work. So i located a species that has a known lethal copper toxicity level. The fish selected was Poecilia reticulata which has LD 50 at 96 hours of .05ppm at the pH of 6.5. Used Ro/di and seachem acid and alkaline buffers to maintain this level as a daily average.
Next I wanted to make sure the amino acids was added to the feed not the water. So tested some binders as well, settling on alginate and PVP powder depending on type of food fed.
I placed 5 P. reticulata in a 5 gallon aquarium and began to feed the supplemented foods for 24 hours. I then began to slowly raise the tanks copper level by .01 ppm every 12 hours. Using math and and the hanna copper checker and lamotte copper test to verify. I ended the experiment after 2 months and no fatalities.
I began a new experiment afterwards at .07ppm with 5 different P. reticulata acclimated the same way.
I also tested on a yellow tang I selected from a tank with fish showing obvious signs of velvet.
I have not recorded any fatalities as of yet. I also can not verify the yellow tang had ich to start as no symptoms ever appeared, to say this positively has no effect on parasites feeding on the fish.
I am also testing a similar additive to combat aggression in fish. This one working on 5ht receptors in the brain. This test is on going with no results to share other than the test subject is a pygmy yellow tail angel that currently attacks any new additions smaller than 3x its size, even when using acclimation boxes.
Looking for any comments anyone wishes to share.
But as an introduction, I am active on Reef2Reef as Gareth Elliott(i was tired when making the account, name went in username space lol). And have been keeping fish since I was a child, mostly freshwater from piranha to fresh water pipe fish.
While over thinking adding a shoal of the evansi anthais and how to reduce stress of an already difficult species in a copper qt; I started reading. Yes a bad idea. What I was reading was how copper toxicity works, how do we treat for humans with copper toxicity, could i apply this in qt.
What I finally settled on was diet as the how and GSH as the why. GSH is
glutathione-disulfide reductase an enzyme that is the primary method our body uses to deal with heavy metal poisoning that mode of action is a fenton reaction.(I am not a chemist so not going to try to explain in depth). Only that copper works in a similar manner to iron as far as toxicity.
Now I did more reading, dietary supplementation is inefficient at increasing tissue levels. But read that you can use the amino acids its made from(sulfur aminos), to cause the body to create GSH.
The experiment:
Now since I was using human studies as an analog for fish I did not want to just hope this would work. So i located a species that has a known lethal copper toxicity level. The fish selected was Poecilia reticulata which has LD 50 at 96 hours of .05ppm at the pH of 6.5. Used Ro/di and seachem acid and alkaline buffers to maintain this level as a daily average.
Next I wanted to make sure the amino acids was added to the feed not the water. So tested some binders as well, settling on alginate and PVP powder depending on type of food fed.
I placed 5 P. reticulata in a 5 gallon aquarium and began to feed the supplemented foods for 24 hours. I then began to slowly raise the tanks copper level by .01 ppm every 12 hours. Using math and and the hanna copper checker and lamotte copper test to verify. I ended the experiment after 2 months and no fatalities.
I began a new experiment afterwards at .07ppm with 5 different P. reticulata acclimated the same way.
I also tested on a yellow tang I selected from a tank with fish showing obvious signs of velvet.
I have not recorded any fatalities as of yet. I also can not verify the yellow tang had ich to start as no symptoms ever appeared, to say this positively has no effect on parasites feeding on the fish.
I am also testing a similar additive to combat aggression in fish. This one working on 5ht receptors in the brain. This test is on going with no results to share other than the test subject is a pygmy yellow tail angel that currently attacks any new additions smaller than 3x its size, even when using acclimation boxes.
Looking for any comments anyone wishes to share.
