OXYGEN & AQUATIC LIFE

OXYGEN & AQUATIC LIFE

AIR,

OUR ATMOSPHERE,, SUPPLIES OXYGEN TO.

Every living creature that depends on oxygen dissolved in water to digest its food and fuel its cellular activities.

Dry air contains roughly (by volume.) 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of other gases.  on average (H2O) AS A GAS IS AROUND  1%.

The oxygen that is needed must be extracted from moist tissue in our lungs where the oxygen is attracted to the haemoglobin within this special tissue.

The haemoglobin attracts the dissolved oxygen takes it and  moves the oxygen out of the special membranes in the lungs or gills into the bloodstream, where it is distributed to every cell in the body.

We who breath air are fortunate because every breath we take has 20.95% oxygen and only a small portion of this oxygen needs to be taken in order have enough oxygen to distribute it to every cell in our body.

Animals such as tilapia only have a percentage that equals the amount of oxygen already dissolved in the water to draw from.  Since the oxygen is rarely above 10 parts oxygen per million parts of H20.

This means that every aquatic animal, that must take its oxygen, from the amount of oxygen dissolved in the water is severely threatened by any reductions that go below a certain amount.This amount tends to vary with temperature so that the maximum amount of oxygen at 40 degrees farenheight is around 10 parts of oxygen per million parts of H2O or water, and at 95 degrees farenheight the amount declines to about 6  parts of oxygen per million parts of H2O.

What this means is that these two level or concentrations in water are a sort of equilibrium point for oxygen at a temperature of 65 degrees (10 parts oxygen dissolves easily or at least will dissolve in water) but as the temperature of 85 or 90 degrees only about 7 parts of oxygen will dissolve easily at sea level.  Meters that read oxygen therefore have to be calibrated to the altitude in order to be accurate.

If the oxygen meter is measuring the oxygen dissolved in water at sea level and at a temperature of 65 degrees the equilibrium point is around 10 parts of oxygen per one million parts of water.

If you happen to use the metric system this makes it all easier to understand since a cubic meter of water is one million grams and if you have a reading of 10 parts oxygen per  one million parts of water.  This is 10 grams of oxygen for each  one million grams of water.

Then when something takes oxygen out of water such as a good quality feed then if the oxygen meter reads 5 ppm this means you will have to replace 5 grams of oxygen for each cubic meter in order to keep you crop happy.

Five ppm means 5 (p)arts (p)er (million) and is just an easy way to say(5 grams of oxygen for each cubic meter or five parts per million)

You can the know what it is going to cost in energy or oxygen cost to dissolve  the amount  of  oxygen into the water, because all you need to know is how many cubic meters you have in the system and add 5 grams for each cubic meter.

The cost in your system will depend on how much energy it takes to drive the system.

For instance if you are using a high energy system such as an air blower driven by an electric or gasoline motor your cost will be approximately the cost of running a one horsepower engine for three hours for each pound you need to dissolve and the amount of oxygen required will be the total cubic meters of water times the ppm oxygen needing to be replaced.

It takes 454 grams of oxygen to make a pound so if you need to add a pound of  oxygen to the water it will cost the amount of energy it takes to run an air pump for 3 hours.

If on the other hand you are using an energy efficient system such as my u-tube which only requires 1/8th of the amount of energy to dissolve a pound of oxygen in the water then your cost will only be 1/8th as much for dissolving the amount of oxygen needed.

So when  water is at 95 degrees farenheight and is holding only  6  parts of oxygen per million parts of H2O, and are fed enough feed to drop the  6  parts of oxygen per million parts to 3  parts of oxygen per million of H2O then tilapia and many other aquatic species  tend to regurgitate any feed still in there gut, thus creating a biological crash where the regurgitated feed, that is eliminated from the gut begins to draw oxygen from the system that is already in trouble due to low oxygen.

This regurgitated feed tends to lower the oxygen level to a  level that is lethal to most of the animals in the same water except the tilapia.

Due to the facts that tilapia can skitter (thus switching to getting its oxygen from the atmosphere which is above the water rather than from the depleted water in the tank, pond or lake where the tilapia is submersed, and  its ability to digest its food anerobicaly.

Also, when a tilapia swallows too much food and its digestion calls for more food or it is stressed for any reason the tilapia will come to the surface of the water and skitter to get more oxygen from the comparatively oxygen rich atmosphere..

This ability to switch to getting oxygen from water by getting oxygen from the atmosphere where the amount oxygen is basically unlimited to the tilapia is an enormous advantage that the tilapia has over all other species that must get oxygen from the fowled water.

One of the interesting things about tilapia is that for each pound of feed fed to the tilapia one pound of oxygen needs tobe dissolved to replace the oxygen used in digesting and metabolising the feed so in planning your growing system you must plan on having the appropriate equipment to add the require dissolved oxygen in pounds to match your feeding program already in place for your system.

Related Posts

1. Skittering and Snails Two ways Of Catching Or Avoiding low Oxygen in a pond
2. OXYGEN & THE HUMAN FISH
3. MIKE SIPES SIMPLE ONE ACRE INTENSIVE SYSTEM or “SIPE’S SIMPLE SYSTEM”
4. A Tilapia Test Anyone Can Run For Very Little Money
5. FINANCING AQUACULTURE PILOT PROJECT FOR BREAKTHROUGH DEMONSTRATION

About the author

MIKE SIPE

I am 70 as of August 4th 2010.  I have spent over 41 years Breeding tilapia, improving tilapia gene lines creating Red tilapia, and improving the body form of "pennyfish" from 24% in 1963 to 50% in 2009. I have pioneered and installed high oxygen intensive aquaculture production  systems.   We (TILAPIA AQUACULTURE INTERNATIONAL) built the first u-tube used to control oxygen and co2 levels in aquaculture.   We can dissolve up to  800 parts per million parts of water and thereby control oxygen levels in growing situations. ( THIS IS WHAT MAKES OUR INTENSIVE CULTURE SYSTEM WORK SO WELL) We have designed hatchery systems to produce thousand of pennyfish fingerlings a day using breeder cages.   We have helped to establish the production of over two billion pounds per year of our tilapia in over 50 locations in North America, Mexico, South America, Central America, Kenya Africa, and Saudi Aribea in the Middle east.  Our goal is to help people with the production of tilapia necessary to *feed everyone* in the world a well balanced nutritious* diet, and to restore the forest of the world. If you wish to talk with me my phone number is 877 217 7006. Please feel free to call me during normal Eastern daylight times. At this particular time I believe that I have more hands on experience in building , designing and running u-tubes to lower the cost and risk for growing all kinds of Aquaculture by 10% - 20% and the cost of dissolving oxygen in an intensive system by 50- 85%. The safety issue is by far the most important issue because having complete control over the oxygen level in a tank helps to assure he safety of the crop and the cost. Another area where I have extensive experience is on what is required to create new characteristics in a gene line. We can take a tilapia that is black and turn it to a brilliant red or take a gene line and select for various body form changes or various internal genetics needed needed to manufacture certain expensive biochemical products..such as Heparin which is an important molecule in haemoglobin that plays a role in clotting blood. A good breeding and selection system could virtually increase the production of almost any biological chemical system in the tilapia.

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