LOW O2

[dasaltemelosguy]

                                 

  

I thought this relatively new data was really interesting.

The USDA, in conjunction with two independent laboratories in New Zealand and Sweden along with three fisheries on the Snake River in Idaho, performed one of the most comprehensive studies on Oxygen deprivation while medicating fish I've seen.

The study is vast (almost 400 pages of data!) and examined hundreds of parameters but in this instance, what seemed to hold potential benefits for an aquarist, a portion of the study was on the effects of adding aeration vs supplemental Oxygen to fish tanks during illness, while being medicated and to offset environmental stressors.

The objective was to determine if increasing the dissolved Oxygen would raise the efficacy of medicinal treatments and/or improve mortality, as well as to determine if other stress factors shared similar weight in the efficacy of treatment.

*

In typical aquariums with some exceptions, 7.5PPM-8.5PPM of Oxygen is considered normal and healthy. In this experiment, they stocked rainbow trout (125g avg. weight) into tanks with three different values of dissolved Oxygen.:

-Tanks average dissolved Oxygen concentration was at 7.5PPM.

Survival and medicinal treatment efficacy were averaged at 88% in the 7.5PPM tanks.

 

-Tanks average dissolved Oxygen concentration was at 6.5PPM.

Survival and medicinal treatment efficacy were averaged at 68% in the 6.5PPM tanks.

(A third test was done with Oxygen at only 4.5PPM but I've not included that as that level of Oxygen would not normally be present in a home aquarium).

Considering that some medications can drop the tank O2 as low as 6PPM (see chart below), the 20% increase in mortality observed with the 6.5PPM tanks certainly underscores the need to keep the O2 high when using medications!

They then administered what they considered ‘maximum aeration’. Survival and medicinal treatment efficacies rose, but to a disappointing amount:

-Survival and medicinal treatment efficacy were averaged at 93% in the 7.5PPM tanks.

-Survival and medicinal treatment efficacy were averaged at 74% in the 6.5PPM tanks.

 

Notice the fish raised in 6.5PPM & 7.5PPM only benefitted about 5%-6% or so from aeration during treatment. That is, the Oxygen levels were essentially fully normalized once aeration was applied. In fact, O2 levels reached complete normality with simple aeration alone.

(Their test was taken over a 120-day period).

                                                                                                                   *

As above, in a typical aquarium, just simple aeration will almost fully offset these Oxygen losses from some commonly used medications known to suppress dissolved Oxygen. Charted below are six tanks treated with some common medications most of us have used at the default dosages. The O2 level of this water before adding any chemicals was 8.5PPM:

 

 

The one exception of the medications I've tested being nitrofurazone. Without aeration, it dropped O2 levels to borderline stressor levels (<=7PPM), but simple aeration raises and maintains it to/at 7.5PPM. However, unlike the other popular meds in the graph, O2 levels drop again as soon as aeration is ceased. Unlike all others in this limited test, nitrofurazone keeps the O2 down for at least 48 hours if not more (I only tested up to 48h). Only water changes rectified this.

Notice Seachem Prime’s O2 depletion infamy is quite short lived. In just 15 minutes, most of the O2 has normalized and fully so inside of an hour. However, the Prime 5X ‘emergency dose’ drops O2 to near dangerous levels. So, aeration is imperative.

 

Although aggressive aeration brought the O2 to normal levels, it didn’t affect the outcome of medicative stress, recovery or mortality very much. But they weren’t done with this concept.

As aeration proved to assist in treatment recovery of only 5%-6%, the Snake River facility partnered with two university laboratories below to test if super saturation of the tanks with Oxygen (hyper-oxidation) would in fact improve the recovery from disease, improve medication tolerance and reduce mortality.

HYPEROXIDATION

But what if aquarium Oxygen is raised above saturation? If circa 7.5PPM Oxygen is normal and healthy, what effect if any, does hyper-saturation of the aquarium with Oxygen to say, 9PPM or 10PPM have on sick fish being treated with common medications? It's easy to do, but is it worthwhile?

Their findings were surprising and potentially valuable to us.

A study done by the Universities of Auckland and Gothenburg cites observances of medicated fish with supplemental Oxygen. It was found that an astounding leap in reduced mortality and medicinal treatment efficacy occurs when the tank is flooded with Oxygen.

The tank had its Oxygen levels raised above normal Oxygen levels (circa 7.5PPM) and held to 9PPM-10PPM during treatments. Unlike the 5%-6% improvement in illness treatment with aeration alone, once the O2 was temporarily raised to between 9PPM and 10PPM, the outcomes changed dramatically:

-Increased metabolism.

-It was observed that a small but significant percentage of severely ill fish that were refusing food, began to ingest small amounts of medicated foods after being hyper-oxidated for 24-48 hours.

-Improved ability to endure most common stressors.

-Improved a fish's temperature tolerance substantially.

On average, hyper-oxidation of the tanks reduced mortality during various medicinal treatments by 38%!  It also increased the success rate of treatments by the same amount or greater!

(Most of the treatments in these tests were deworming's so unfortunately, no data was presented for antibiotic treatments as these fish are raised for human consumption and the USDA limits antibiotic use. However, some of their tests did in fact include “unapproved” antibiotic treatments but the antibiotics used were not specified).

The elephant in the room now would be to examine if raising the tanks O2 to hyper-saturation levels would or even could do any harm. To that end, the next observation should be if in fact there are any adverse observations on hyper-oxidation.

They list the following as positive to neutral;

-Had no effect on fry or juvenile growth.

-Insignificant rise in resting metabolism but quickly returns to normal once ceased.

-Substantially increases metabolism under stress.*

-Increased aerobic capacity and cardiac performance.

-Dramatic improvement in temperature variation tolerance.

*I'm speculating here but this observation seems to me that it might prove the most important of all these benefits for weak or stressed fishes, especially while being medicated.

*

An interesting note here. Well into the study is this most odd finding. I wish they provided more information. The statement below is from the study but offers no explanation so I'm simply quoting it here verbatim: 

"Hyperoxidation of the tanks significantly assists in penetration and kill-off of anaerobic methane pockets, especially in sand and finer gravels."

I wish there was more information provided on that one!

*

With a simple DIY addition, you can hyper-saturate your tank with Oxygen. It may help fish recover from disease and tolerate medications and has no known adverse effects.

A simple, Hydrogen Peroxide degassing rig for removing the O2 from peroxide and delivering it to the tank with zero risk of toxicity is linked below. This simply degasses the O2 out of the peroxide and you pump it into the tank with an airstone.

If the amounts of peroxide, the bucket size and air pump are used as listed, it will hyper-oxidate your tank to 9PPM-10PPM for two days:

Degassing Peroxide

Of course, with techniques such as these, you'll never truly know if it helped!  But O2 can't hurt (many thanks to @Colu  @Gator @dmurray407 @Guppysnail  and @OnlyGenusCaps for their input) and a potential 38% improvement in recovery from illness in their tests may make this or some more sophisticated equivalent of this worth trying, especially if you're experiencing fatalities or recovery is slow or incomplete.

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by dasaltemelosguy
Improved Chart

[ScottieB]

Great write up!

Thats NERM level 1,000 and I loved it.

Really interesting to see how that translates to routine antibiotic use but I can speculate as to the benefits. I found the graph particularly interesting and will unpack the rest of the data you got here over the next couple hours.

Thank you so much for putting that together!

[OnlyGenusCaps]

As usual @dasaltemelosguy, you have distilled down useful information with practical applications in aquariums.  Thanks!  I always look forward to your contributions!

[eatyourpeas]

Is there a risk to the critters if yeast is used as the degassing reactor? I tried it with 12% H2O2 in a bottle with an airline tube connected to the top to take the O2 release. The O2 bubbles went into the water. Short lived, but an interesting approach for nano use. Do you have any information on this, @dasaltemelosguy, or anybody?

[dasaltemelosguy]

I don't think there's a risk. But as you said, it spends the O2 rather quickly if you use any catalyst. Also, since the water cannot absorb O2 in large amounts that quickly, much will probably go to waste.

Since you have 12%, I would use 1 part of the 12% to 3 parts water as that will slowly leach the O2 in a time frame that the water can absorb it better. If the air flow is too slow, you can allow a controlled leak with a small hole or another airline with a valve to allow some outside air into the bucket.

I never thought of that until you raised the issue, but an airline valve would allow you to use oversized air pumps and the same amount of O2 would be released but mixed with some outside air. Very roughly speaking, a typical, single, small airstone emits about the amount of gas that more or less matches the rate of water's ability to absorb it so it's a vague but reasonably close gauge of how much air and peroxide to use. 

benedici i tuoi bambini❣️

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 1/10/2022 at 2:29 PM, ScottieB said:

Great write up!

Thats NERM level 1,000 and I loved it.

Really interesting to see how that translates to routine antibiotic use but I can speculate as to the benefits. I found the graph particularly interesting and will unpack the rest of the data you got here over the next couple hours.

Thank you so much for putting that together!

Thanks so much for the kind words. I know, I wish they had test with antibiotics too! But I think you're right that it would translate to most medications that stress the fish, nonetheless. It's a vast report, almost 400 pages of data. The only mention of antibiotic use during their Oxygen tests is in a bizarre section of 'Unapproved drugs not prohibited by the USDA' which they did in fact employ in some tanks during the tests. 

For what it's worth, this is all they've expanded on insofar as antibiotics used:

Condition of use
General
Oxytetracycline hydrochloride is a broad spectrum antibacterial agent which was widely used to control in fish bacterial
diseases including furunculosis (caused by susceptible Aeromonas salmonicida) in Salmonids (salmon and trout) and
Bacterial Haemorrhagic Septicaemia, (caused by susceptible Aeromonas hydrophila, A. sobia, and Pseudomonas
species) in Catfish and Salmonids.
Dosage
The typical dosage is 75 mg/kg body weight daily for 4 to10 successive days in fish. (Bishop, 1998)

It ain't much but it seems to apply to tetracycline!

[eatyourpeas]

On 1/11/2022 at 8:27 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:

If the air flow is too slow, you can allow a controlled leak with a small hole or another airline with a valve to allow some outside air into the bucket.

That is how I have it set up. It is an easy way to control air flow, allowing for the O2 absorption to take place.

On 1/11/2022 at 8:27 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:

benedici i tuoi bambini❣️

Si 😍

[Chad]

Thanks for posting, this is great information!!

[Guppysnail]

I just had the opportunity to read this thoroughly. Fascinating thank you for sharing. The question it opens to my mind is the affect of hyper oxidation in unmedicated fish with say minor fin rot. Would the extra oxygen alone boost the metabolism reducing stress enough for the fishes own immune system to bolster enough to recover without medication?  I’m sure in the major illnesses this would not be enough but possibly for the minor ones to eliminate the need for medication. Would providing the hyper oxidation as a normal living condition reduce the number of opportunistic infections etc that stressed fish succumb to?  This was enough good information that should the need arise for medication in my tanks I would certainly go the extra mile needed to achieve the higher oxygen concentrations. Thank you again for taking the time to share this in a condensed post, I would not make it through 409 pages 🤣

[dasaltemelosguy]

@Guppysnail those are great observations. The more I read those studies, the more upside potential there seems to be.

And yes, you're right. Virtually all of the studies cite immunity improvement. 

An odd one surfaced too. There was literally a study done on using hyper oxidation for medication overdoses. In particular, they were trying to revive inverts that suffered through a Levamisole treatment. In fact, they cited hyper oxidation as the only treatment for this particular med OD. 

As I read more of them, I noticed the only cited downside being a form of acidosis but in fish, the O2 rises in concert with the CO2 so they don't suffer adverse effects and it immediately returns to normal once the supplemental O2 is ceased. So, it seems pretty safe. 

I think your fin rot observation may be spot on. I'm literally going to try that on my oscar as he has minor rot and perhaps, I can avoid meds altogether.

Thank you for the ideas!

[Guppysnail]

Please keep me posted. I would love to know the results and any other observations you have using this as well as healing time with this method. I hope it works. It would be a wonderful alternative saving medication as big guns for big issues. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

In terms of delivery systems what are we talking about? There’s the sochting oxydater is there another system or diy approach?

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 1/25/2022 at 10:25 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

In terms of delivery systems what are we talking about? There’s the sochting oxydater is there another system or diy approach?

I mean @dasaltemelosguy will know better, but I'm planning on trying a CO2 system but using and O2 tank instead.  After dealing with serious disease issues this last year, I'm planning on over building a QT tank.  I think O2 enhancement will be part of it.  Once I get it going, I'll post about the assembly and then using it as well. 

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 1/26/2022 at 4:50 AM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

I mean @dasaltemelosguy will know better, but I'm planning on trying a CO2 system but using and O2 tank instead.  After dealing with serious disease issues this last year, I'm planning on over building a QT tank.  I think O2 enhancement will be part of it.  Once I get it going, I'll post about the assembly and then using it as well. 

@OnlyGenusCaps, that's a brilliant idea. The entire delivery system is already in place, just swap out the gas! 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@dasaltemelosguyim sorry if I missed it but were you suggesting a particular delivery device for the O2? Is it a diy oxydater using h2o2 or something else? 

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 1/27/2022 at 5:17 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

@dasaltemelosguyim sorry if I missed it but were you suggesting a particular delivery device for the O2? Is it a diy oxydater using h2o2 or something else? 

Hi, yes, it's just a simple rig to degass peroxide and pump it into the tank. I drew it up one morning after reading someone poisoned their tank adding peroxide directly to the water boost O2 which can be tricky. I merely quantified the output for a predictable O2 level using commonly available parts.

But the really cool part is the study done where the labs found a huge improvement in medicative efficacy when treating sick fishes with while keeping the tanks hyper oxidated. 

Links to both are here: LOW/O2

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/26/2022 at 4:50 AM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

I think O2 enhancement will be part of it.

Neo aquaria actually sells diffuser stones for air.  Might be something to help with that project.  They are white as opposed to the tan/brown for CO2.