Our need for science

[GaryE]

I recently bought Imperial Lapis tetras at a quality local store. It's one of those flowery names popular in the Chinese aquarium trade (think "Celestial Pearl danios"), and such names are becoming common as the English speaking hobby loses ground to the growth of the hobby in China. We have a tendency in North America to fear Latin, but now we're translating Mandarin. But whether Mandarin or English, I'm not getting good info on this new to the hobby tetra.

It's a lovely creature, and I hope everyone here who keeps tetras gets to see this odd little beauty. But the hits I get on google are all sales pitches. Its real identity is vague. Is it Hyphessobrycom melanostichos? H. cyanotaenia? H nigricinctus?

There's a cluster of similar, newly introduced tetras that could be sold under the imperial lapis brand name, and to find out which I have, I have to ignore standard google and go to the scientific pdfs. When these small, tank bred tetras have grown, in a few weeks, I now have the documentation and means to identify them. When I look up the English/Mandarin name, I get interchangeable photos of 2 different species.

I think we have a responsibility as hobbyists to share info. I hope to have enough success with these fish to be able to write an article, maybe here, so that future searches won't just get sales pitches, but concrete, shared info on how to keep the fish. If someone beats me to that, post it. Share it. My last scientific course was Grade 10 biology, and I'm not putting on airs here. I'm not a scientist. Others have done the work to find and describe these creatures, and if they become popular, there will be a hobbyist need for info. For now, Latin offers it.

It's ironic that in our little hobbyist world, all these foolish "Imperial this and that" pop names reflect why science chose to use Latin, the language of a dead empire. It was done when the conflicts were the British, Dutch, French and Spanish empires, and is just as valid with the Mandarin and English speaking empires duking it out. Latin names are apolitical and neutral, in a language no one speaks anymore. But if you want grounded info on a fish, it gets you what you want.

Just pretend melanostichos is an English word, like moustache, melanin or sticky. It's easy. It gets results.

 

[plebian]

Not to be pedantic, but the reason Latin is still used is an artifact of the Roman Empire, Christianized Europe and later The Enlightenment. It had nothing to do with the British, Dutch, French and Spanish empires accept as an artifact of the aforementioned. All the ancient scholarly texts were written in Latin, or translated into Latin from Greek originals (in some cases from Arabic), including most religious texts, so it became the universal language of educated people worldwide.

It's a dead language only in the sense that it no longer evolves like living languages, thus its utility. When I studied Latin in high school, I was taught words of Latin origin make up approximately 40% of the English language. I don't know how accurate that is, but it's not far off. Surprisingly, the next largest proportion of words of foreign origin is German.

 

[Magnum Man]

Hyphessobrycon melanostichos - Aquarium Glaser GmbH

In our latest newsletter I made a regattable mistake: I used pictures of Hyphessobrycon cf. melanostichos instead of pictures of the „real“ Hyphessobrycon melanostichos in the post; H. cf. melanostichos differs a lot from the „real“ species in life colours. So here are now pictures of the „real“...

www.aquariumglaser.de

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Gee- I must be smarter than I realized. I started using Google Scholar for aquarium/fish related things about 20 years ago. When it comes to the hobby 95% of my bookmarks are links to scientific papers.

Long ago I realized that even on forums like this one Urban Aquarium Myths rule and are almost impossible to kill. What is even worse if the stuff on social media and especially Youtube.

I cringe every time I read that of you have any level of ammonia in a tank you must change water. Even worse is when that is stated for nitrite.

As a result, I came up with this saying: "You can lead a fishkeeper to water but you can't make them think."

 

[FranciscoB]

Err, ammonia or nitrite - if there is any, yes, one better makes a water change with good water AND ASCERTAIN WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE BIOLOGICAL processing in the tank.

 

[f_luxus]

Ammonia below a pH of 7 is not particularly dangerous. It is also easily absorbed by plants.

 

[gwand]

Ammonia exists in two forms in water: un-ionized ammonia (NH3+) and ionized ammonium (NH4+). The ratio between these two forms is determined by the water's pH level. At higher pH levels (more alkaline conditions), more ammonia exists in the toxic un-ionized form (NH3), which can easily injure fish. Conversely, at lower pH levels (more acidic conditions), ammonium (NH4+) predominates, which is less toxic to fish.

 

[AJ356]

I cringe every time I read that of you have any level of ammonia in a tank you must change water. Even worse is when that is stated for nitrite.

Whats wrong with advising a water change if you have Nitrite readings? Okay, it might not always be needed, depending on the levels and other factors perhaps. But why does it disturb you?

This thread is proof that no matter what the topic, everything does come back to ammonia and nitrite one way or the other.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Very cool= some folks understand ammonia.

Chloride competes with nitrite to enter a fish via the gills. Chloride will always win that competition as long as it is present in the needed concentration. When it is, it blocks the nitrite from entering the fish.

Next, once inside a fish, it take a day or more to work its way out. So, if one has 1 ppm of nitrite in their water and changes 50% of the water lowering that to .5 ppm, that amount of nitrite is still going in. So, if one changes 0 water but dissolves the proper amount of chloride into the water, no Nitrite is entering the fish. If only there was a handy source of chloride and a way to know how to add to to a tank handy.

But, there are both things available- one in you home and one right here on this forum. Salt is sodium chloride, who doesn't have access to a bit of salt where they live? How to use that salt is laid out in an easy to follow step by step set of instructions tight here on this site's forum:
https://www.fishforums.net/threads/rescuing-a-fish-in-cycle-gone-wild-part-il.433778/

And, as a bonus it also explains how to know if any ammonia reading in any parameter water is likely safe for a while or if you do need to change water.

Except when one is cycling a tank, it is not common to have reading for ammonia and/or nitrite. However, this does not mean it is not possible. However, when these do occur, one can treat them in the same way.

You can use table salt for dealing with nitrite. Before you get all tied in knots about it having other ingredients, pleas read this article. I knew the author from a fish forum, now defunct , I was on before I came here for the very first time. But first, here is info about the author written. some years ago, RTR aka Robert T. Ricketts:

Retired research scientist (biochemistry and physiology, pharmaceutical development) and senior process analyst.Started fishkeeping in the dark ages (1950s),

Here is the article on salt: The Salt of the Earth, the Salt from the Sea . . .

It is pretty long but the most important part, except for we real nerds, is in the first few paragraphs

 

[anewbie]

I think the title of this thread is incorrect and should be the "need for using scientific names for species" as it has little to do with actual science.

 

[f_luxus]

if you have Nitrite readings?

To protect your fish it's the same effective to give a bit NaCl to the water as a first aid.
As a second aid, a good bacteria booster as Arka Special Blend after some water changes should be a good idea.

Edit: while i was writing @TwoTankAmin wrote it already...

 

[gwand]

I think the title of this thread is incorrect and should be the "need for using scientific names for species" as it has little to do with actual science.

Or the need for a uniformed nomenclature.

 

[anewbie]

Or the need for a uniformed nomenclature.

That will never happen since vendors often pick names based off of market value. I see this with a lot of colour morph fishes where the name constantly changed based on what happens to have the highest value even if the fish itself has not.

While you could argue that colour morph is not the same as species; it gets worse when we start looking at sp and cf species. While tanked raised fishes might be assigned a name (hopefully consistent even if incorrect - i.e, domestic laetacara cuviceps; many fishes esp tetra are frequently shipped as wild caught where the importer (or even the exporter) might have no clue as to the true species name much less the nomenclature.

 

[fishorama]

I'm with anewbie, so many new names now than even many years ago. Better info or better IDs. DNA? Maybe...Collection sites? I can't keep up! Fish are often lumped together in "similar" species, then parsed out later. When we know more, we make better IDs. So much more to learn!