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Re: [APD] RE: DOC and why you should do water changes/treat yourcatbetter



Well then, in my case the DOC is very high!  You see, I have a 17lb Maine
Coon cat that desides when things happen, if they don't happen then he'll
make them happen, either by walking on you (very painful) or simply making a
lot of noise (very annoying).  He's also quite a jumper, on my 90g tank, he
stands right at the base (not so often now that he can't even see in the
water...) and jumps clear up to 3/4 the way to the top!  This is a AGA, 2'
tall, then whatever the base height is (pine base also AGA).  This isn't so
bad, his claws aren't hard enough to scratch glass, except they are hard
enough to scratch the pine, which he does each time on the way back down
from the top of the tank! (I filled it with Sharpy pen)  Anyway, thanks for
the in formation, the only thing I could think of was something similar to
Dissolved Oxygen Content.

-Dave


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thomas Barr" <tcbiii at earthlink_net>
To: <aquatic-plants at actwin_com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 11:15 PM
Subject: [APD] RE: DOC and why you should do water changes/treat your
catbetter


> Someone said:
>
> >What's DOC
>
> Well there's two meanings.
> Dissolved Organic Carbon.
> Damn Onerous Cat
>
> It's something few ever test for and builds up to a certain point in tanks
> that do not get water changes.
>
> I had a rough time testing the cat. "Hisses per day" is not a bad measure
> though.
>
> By doing water changes frequently, you remove any plant, bacteria, algae,
> fungi fish based organics that may/or may not interfere with
> plants/fish/uptake etc.
> If you want to remove unknowns, frequent large water changes works well to
> keep things on the inorganic side.
>
> Since you cannot possibly test for each type practically, I just do water
> changes, it works.
> Water changes can provide an easy method of estimating the dosing/ppm
> levels, removes any unknowns/organic components, adds a nice jolt of CO2,
> make fish and plants happy, algae seem to dislike it generally.
>
> The cat seems to like fresh chicken livers, doesn't hiss then.
> Adds fertilizers a few hours later to the kitty litter substrate if you
> have a trained "dosing cat"(very coveted).
>
> Many of the organic compounds bind PO4, N, Fe and other trace metals
making
> them un/less available to the plants.
> This is fine in slow growth tanks like a Diana Walstad non CO2 method
tank.
>
> But if you want a good supply of available nutrients for a CO2 enriched
> tank, then it's better to have the nutrients unbound and all inorganic
> except for NH4.
> Many/most of the test kits also measure Total Fe, PO4 etc, not bio
> available Fe, PO4 etc.
> So if you don't do water changes, and you measure 0.2ppm of PO4 then you
> likely have no ppm of PO4 available for the plants, it's all bound up in
> organic molecules.
>
> Now a cat can be tough to measure it's true onerousness. If it has a
> hairball, it will not act right and be more onerous that normal.
>
> This is one reason why I suggest higher than some of the normal amounts of
> fert's or mention about not letting things run too long for long. Many
> times you will note that folks have a residual PO4 level of  0.2ppm.
> Sometimes this is a bad kit, sometimes it's residual bound organic PO4.
>
> This PO4 does get used, but....it gets used __slowly__. Bacteria in most
> cases cleaves the bonds making the nutrients available to algae, plants,
> other bacteria etc.
> Carbon can be used, but water changes will do a better job IMO and also
> have several other benefits.
>
> Carbon is good in cases where you do not want to change the water for some
> reason, salt water etc.
>
> Regards,
> Tom Barr
>
>
>
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>


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