Advanced Supersaturation of Oxygen question.

[Helfrichs Chick]

I have a question with something I have been trying to learn/read more about. I have heard of skimmer causing a supersaturation of oxygen in the water .

 

Now I dont quite get this... in the natural reef, there ARE levels of supersaturated oxygen, even in lagoons and areas with little surface movement. the reason I am having such a hard time with this is that I have been told by a Marine Biologist who owns a LFS...whom I respect and listen to (has a coral named after him, very good at what he does) that this supersaturation can actually harm, even kill your marine life. This really doesnt make any sense to me.

 

I found an article from Eric Borneman talking about the levels of oxygen in our home reef, and the levels in the ocean. Needless to say our home reefs have much less of a concentration. So while I do NOT run a skimmer I would think that the addition of one could only help not harm. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? Can we supersaturate our home reefs with Oxygen... is there any negative effect to this? So go through your books or Google it for me, and help me figure out why a person who is so knowledgeable in this hobby, is giving this advice.

[HecticDialectics]

No idea... but I thought it was funny that you put advanced in the title. I was hoping it was only a regular-level supersaturation of oxygen question.

[Chupacabras]

He must be confused.

 

We try to replicate the reefs, the reefs are super-saturated, ergo our aim should be for tanks to be as close to saturated with oxygen as possible.

 

Yes, you can super-saturate a home tank with enough surface agitation or macro addition.

 

Edit: Is he thinking about air bubbles in the tank? I mean, it's just silly to say oxygenation in a reef tank is bad.

[RayWhisperer]

I don't know. It sounds feasable, though difficult. I've run skimmers on nanos before, with no ill effect. Granted, these were small DIY skimmers, not overly large top end skimmers. I used to have my pus, and they need saturation levels of D.O. This is where a skimmer really helps out. Macro doesn't produce enough oxygen to keep levels that high. Besides, you'd have to slow the water movement through it, to a near stagnation rate, to achieve anything remotely close to it.

[Chupacabras]

Macro absolutely could supersaturate a tank, not the amounts we generally use in reef tanks or how our systems are designed of course, but it is if you wanted to.

[Helfrichs Chick]

I had made sure that he was not talking about the microbubbles, as I thought thats what he was talking about also. He is implying that there could be such a saturation of dissolved oxygen, the corals and fish will not be able to digest foods, reproduce, or it could even kill the zoanthelle in coral tissue. I guess what I meant when I say "advanced" is that I would like some hard facts here. What is considered normal ox levels, whats considered low and high. Whats are the goods, and bads, if run too low or too high.

I have been looking for D.O. contents of different oceans, and can not find any, everyone seems to just its supersaturated... NS Sherlock lol. I know Salifert has a D.O. test kit, I will go get it today. I would be interested to see if there is a significant change when I / if I add a skimmer.

[Chupacabras]

Sure, if by saturation you mean "air".

 

Edit: Maybe he's confusing outgassing of CO2 with excessive oxygenation?

[nautilus8]

I could not resist ... Oxygen supersaturation can be toxic to marine organisms; and here we are talking about dissolved oxygen, NOT microbubbles. This is a condition that can be found naturally in areas of very high primary productivity (read photosynthesis) and in aquaculture systems with excessive aeriation/mixing.

 

High oxygen concentration lead to high levels of toxic reactive oxygen radicals (i.e. superoxide radical, hydroxyl radical OH+ (no mistake here, the charge of the radical is positive)). This radicals react and denatue enzymes in cells, interfering with normal metabolism. Furthermore, under supersaturated conditions, oxygen can "come out" of solution inside tissues forming microbubbles inside animals, which lead to "Gas Bubble Disease", commonly known in aquaculture.

 

Let me know if you want to know more about the subject, I will supply with references to scientific literature.

 

Sorry for the rant, could not let this one go

[Chupacabras]

Let me know if you want to know more about the subject, I will supply with references to scientific literature.

Please. Specifically, the conditions and changes in aquaculture that cause this effect.

[Helfrichs Chick]

I could not resist ... Oxygen supersaturation can be toxic to marine organisms; and here we are talking about dissolved oxygen, NOT microbubbles. This is a condition that can be found naturally in areas of very high primary productivity (read photosynthesis) and in aquaculture systems with excessive aeriation/mixing.

 

High oxygen concentration lead to high levels of toxic reactive oxygen radicals (i.e. superoxide radical, hydroxyl radical OH+ (no mistake here, the charge of the radical is positive)). This radicals react and denatue enzymes in cells, interfering with normal metabolism. Furthermore, under supersaturated conditions, oxygen can "come out" of solution inside tissues forming microbubbles inside animals, which lead to "Gas Bubble Disease", commonly known in aquaculture.

 

Let me know if you want to know more about the subject, I will supply with references to scientific literature.

 

Sorry for the rant, could not let this one go

 

Explained well, the fall out of solution makes sense to me, as you can only fill one thing with so much of another before you see a break down of the whole structure... huh did that make sense lol. Like CA falling out of solution, I get it.

I am GLAD you chimed in for sure! I really didnt think the LFS guy was pulling this outa his ars. HE is a jerk for shizzle but he always knows his stuff.

 

Do you know the proper way to check for D.O, and just to make sure I am correct in saying D.O is the saturation of oxygen? Do you also know any sources of info on proper saturation levels? Just curious, as with nanos, andand many going skimmer crazy, this might shed some light on problems some people have with their tanks.

 

Thank you so much!

 

Oh and BTW I hope I didnt offend anyone with the "Advanced" title. Just thought it would catch the eye of the dorks like me who read more than they play in their tank.

[MrAnderson]

High oxygen concentration lead to high levels of toxic reactive oxygen radicals (i.e. superoxide radical, hydroxyl radical OH+ (no mistake here, the charge of the radical is positive)). This radicals react and denatue enzymes in cells, interfering with normal metabolism. Furthermore, under supersaturated conditions, oxygen can "come out" of solution inside tissues forming microbubbles inside animals, which lead to "Gas Bubble Disease", commonly known in aquaculture.

 

This makes sense to me. Equilibrium thermodynamics dictate that an extremely small proportion of oxygen in aqueous solution become radicals. Therefore, higher levels of oxygen would seem to result in higher levels of radicals. And as we all know, oxygen radicals are extremely destructive to biological systems.

 

I have no idea if this is empirically true, or if higher O2 levels "drive" radical generation, but it makes sense on the surface.

 

<runs back to lounge>

[er1c_the_reefer]

corals require co2 to photosynthesize. high concentrations of o2 will decrease co2 concentration. not enough co2, no photosynthesis.

 

as for free oxygen radicals, i'd be more worried about that if i was using ozone than if i were using a skimmer.

 

correct myself:

zooxanthellae in coral require co2 to photosynthesis. most corals themselves are carnivores.

[Helfrichs Chick]

Ahhhhhhhh found a %...

A "healthy" aquatic environment should seldom experience DO less than 80%.

 

Found a site with some info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(envi...ntal)#Solutions

 

Unfortunatly its about LOW DO lol not supersaturated.

[Chupacabras]

corals require co2 to photosynthesize. high concentrations of o2 will decrease co2 concentration. not enough co2, no photosynthesis.

High O2 is not the cause of low CO2 concentration. High O2 is a symptom; low CO2 is the result of outgassing of that gas which is done by breaking the waters surface tension, thus oxygenating the water whilst reducing CO2 concentrations. It's totally possible to have 100% O2 and CO2 concentrations.

[Helfrichs Chick]

Ok ok who has the Weiss book, from 1970? Deep Sea, something. It talks about it in there.

[nautilus8]

Hi again,

 

I am swamped with work today (typical Friday....). Anyways, I dug up a couple of references (see below), the last 2 are technical publications that can be downloaded if you visit their webpages.

 

Happy reefing...

 

B. Lygren, K. Hamre & R. Waagbø. 2000. Effect of induced hyperoxia on the antioxidant status of Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L. fed three different levels of dietary vitamin E . Aquaculture Research. Vol. 31 Issue 4 Page 401

 

Matthew G. Mesa, Lisa K. Weiland, and Alec G. Maule. 2000. Progression and Severity of Gas Bubble Trauma in Juvenile Salmonids. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. 2000;129:174–185

 

R. Elston. 1983. Histopathology of oxygen intoxication in the juvenile red abalone, Haliotis rufescens. Swainson. J. Fish Diseases. Vol. 6, issue 2, page 101

 

A Fish Farmer's Guide to Understanding Water Quality. LaDon Swann, Department of Animal Sciences . IIlinois-Indiana Sea Grant Program. Purdue University. http://aquanic.org/publicat/state/il-in/as-503.htm

 

Use of Oxygen Readings to Avoid Gas Bubble Disease in Clam Hatcheries. 2003. Gef Flimlin, John Kraeuter. Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension. http://www.rcre.rutgers.edu/pubs/publication.asp?pid=FS926

[Helfrichs Chick]

oooo thanks will read.

[Chupacabras]

I don't see any references in those aquaculture papers that impugn oxygen as the dangerous culprit, only to be used as an indicator... even then, those dangerous levels of oxygenation would actually be alleviated by heavy protein skimming.

 

I'll have to read into these papers a little more.

[nautilus8]

"Histopathology of oxygen intoxication"

 

Cheers,

 

Nautilus8

[p.o.t.u.s]

Eric Borneman @ IMAC 2005 said:

 

on reef durring day: 95-110%

at night: ~50% at lowest

 

consider the source...take it as you will

 

you could watch the video of the presentation at http://www.reefvideos.com/

[RayWhisperer]

Damn you guys, I was gonna watch the Big Lebowski tonight.

[p.o.t.u.s]

one interesting thing was he said skimmers did zilch!

[nautilus8]

This is the reason why I mostly lurk in these forums...

 

Chupacabras (love your nick!), in regards to oxygen toxicity especifically, please look at the articles below.

 

Happy reefing...

 

Nautilus

 

TI Lethal levels of dissolved oxygen for Haliotis diversicolor supertexta at different salinity levels

AU Cheng, Sha-Yen Chang, Yin-Hung Chen, Jiann-Chu

SO Journal of Shellfish Research

PY 2004

VL 23 IS 2

PS 569-573

 

TI Superoxide production by marine microalgae

AU Marshall, Judith-Anne, De Salas, Miguel Ode, Tatsuya Hallegraeff, Gustaaf

SO Marine Biology (Berlin)

PY 2005

VL 147 IS 2

PS 533-540

 

TI Deleterious effect of Chattonella marina on short-necked clam (Ruditapes philippinarum); possible involvement of reactive oxygen species

AU Kim, Daekyung Kumamoto, Osamu Lee, Kyoung-Seon Kuroda, Aiko Fujii, Akihiko Ishimatus, Atsushi Oda, Tatsuya

SO Journal of Plankton Research

PY 2004

VL 26 IS 8

PS 967-971

 

TI Antioxidant processes are affected in juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) exposed to ozone and oxygen-supersaturated water

AU Ritola, O. Livingstone, D. R. Peters, L. D. Lindstrom-Seppa, P.

SO Aquaculture

PY 2002

VL 210 IS 1-4

PS 1-19

 

TI Generation of reactive oxygen species by raphidophycean phytoplankton

AU Oda, Tatsuya Nakamura, Atsushi Shikayama, Midori Kawano, Ienobu Ishimatsu, Atsushi Muramatsu, Tsuyoshi

SO Bioscience Biotechnology and Biochemistry

PY 1997

VL 61 IS 10

PS 1658-1662

 

TI Oxygen-radical-mediated effects of the toxic phytoplankter Heterosigma carterae on juvenile rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss

AU Yang, C. Z. Albright, L. J. Yousif, A. N.

SO Diseases of Aquatic Organisms

PY 1995

VL 23 IS 2

PS 101-108

[Chupacabras]

I'm heading out the door and don't internet on the w-ends any more... I'll have to check it out Monday.

 

There may be a difference in my thinking on supersaturation in the home reef through pressurized mixing of air with water in a closed system vs. using a skimmer which supersaturates to a lesser degree but also allows the excess oxygen to outgas.

[Helfrichs Chick]

Well I bit down and got a remora skimmer listed on NR. I am stopping by to get a DO kit today, (although I am not sure if its as accurate as the DO probes I have seen) will check before and after, maybe doing a test run for a month, taking it off and putting it back on. I will monitor all water params, usual monthly tests:

 

Nitrates

Nitrite

Ammonia (gotta use up the test lol)

Phosphates

Silicates

Magnesium

Strontium

Boron

Iodine

Ca and Alk

PH

And D.O.

I feel like I am forgetting one here... oh well

 

We will see what happens although I am sure testing on one tank, with only one type of skimmer will not be definitive by any means, but it will be interesting none the less to see. The changes it may have.