In recent decades, aquarism around the world has experienced a real revolution and there is no irony in this statement. Not only the most diverse forms and color variations of fish, but also crustaceans, appeared on sale. A novice aquarist sometimes just has his eyes widen when he gets to the bird market or to a high-quality pet store with a lot of live goods. But all this diversity has a flip side - many species of fish, shrimp and other underwater inhabitants are so demanding on the conditions of detention that they require osmosis for the aquarium or other complex systems.
What is osmosis for?
It may seem strange to people far from aquariums, for which osmosis is generally needed. But for those who are even a little familiar with keeping and raising fish, the answer to this question will be clear - osmosis for the aquarium is necessary to reduce the level of water hardness.
The thing is that many types of aquarium fish are quite demanding on water parameters, such as hardness, softness, acidity, etc. But it is especially important to observe the required parameters for a particular species during the spawning period, without this, even caviar is not swept out. And for raising the fry it is important to maintain the necessary parameters, otherwise it simply will not survive (as an example, red neon)!
Do not confuse the system
When considering water treatment, it is important to understand the differences between simple osmosis and reverse osmosis for an aquarium. To make it clearer, we will consider in brief form the principle of operation of these two systems. So:
- Osmosis. To obtain purified water, two vessels connected to each other are taken, the connection between them is due to the semi-impermeable membrane. It resists the flow of water, which will flow from a vessel in which the resistance is less, into the one where it is more. Thus, the osmosis system operates.
- Reverse osmosis. We take the same two vessels that communicate with each other, and create increased pressure in the one where the resistance is higher, then the water begins to flow in the opposite direction. This is the reverse osmosis system.
How to understand whether to purchase an osmosis system?
Not always you need to purchase any aquarium equipment if you bought an aquarium and started fish. Much depends on how much aquarium you have, and most importantly, what kind of fish and for what purpose you plan to keep it.
So, if you just want to put an aquarium to decorate the interior and contain beautiful, but undemanding fish in it, then you do not need a reverse osmosis filter for the aquarium. But if you plan to not only contain many species, but also professionally engage in their breeding, then you can not do without such equipment.
The choice of system depends on the amount of weekly clean change water required. For several aquariums with a volume of 400 liters or more, you will have enough equipment that gives out 200 liters. This is because you still will not immediately change a large percentage of the water in the aquarium, but will gradually replace it.
Osmosis and saltwater aquarium
Perhaps one of the most difficult areas in home aquariums can be called a marine aquarium. Creating a house of particles of the sea is only possible for an experienced aquarist, beginners should not even try to do it.
The whole difficulty lies not in creating the required water parameters, but in their constant support at the same values. And given the fact that you need to regularly change the water in the aquarium, a failure in the parameters will almost certainly happen. And in this situation, osmosis for a marine aquarium is a real salvation.
But it is worth remembering that before adding purified water to it, you need to throw all the required additives (sea salt, etc.), and only by comparing the parameters in the new water with the water composition in the aquarium, you can pour it into the aquarium.
Choosing an osmosis system
To decide which osmosis is best for the aquarium, you can, based on a number of indicators. First of all, this is the volume of the aquarium. If you have a small artificial pond, but it is planned to contain complex species of fish, then you will need to install osmosis. But there is no need to purchase equipment that is too powerful, because it turns out that the entire supply of power will not be used, and you will pay more than you should!
Well, another criterion that affects the price of equipment. This is the degree of final water purification. Most of the equipment allows you to get 95% purified water, but there is equipment that can purify water by 99%. It will cost more. And before you buy such a system, soberly evaluate what you need so as not to overpay.
You can create osmosis for the aquarium with your own hands, but this requires technical knowledge and certain experience. Yes, and self-created equipment will be significantly inferior to industrial equipment both in percentage of water treatment and in volume!
Terms of use
So, we figured out what constitutes osmosis for an aquarium, now it’s worth saying a few words about the rules for its use:
- The first and most important rule that you should always remember is the ban on the use of pure osmosis. This means that you can not add only purified water to the aquarium, before that it must be partially mixed with the old aquarium. This is explained simply - in nature there is also no ideal environment, and by placing fish in pure osmosis, you risk killing them.
- Do not change a large volume of water, because a sharp change in water parameters can be detrimental to the inhabitants of the aquarium.
- Well, the third rule says that osmosis for aquarium fish, many generations living in the aquarium, can be fatal. The fact is that for many generations the fish managed to adapt to new water parameters and their natural characteristics are no longer important for them.
But still there are a number of fish that without osmosis will not regularly produce offspring, in particular, these are the fish of the Cichlid family.
Aquarium shrimp content
Since the late 2000s, the content of decorative shrimp species in the aquarium has become fashionable. Some of these species look very attractive and quite undemanding to water parameters. These are shrimps belonging to the neocaridine family.
But there are other species that are simply magnificent in color, but very demanding on water quality. One of the main requirements for their maintenance is to maintain absolute cleanliness in the aquarium. And here you just can not do without osmosis for the aquarium.
Such species include red and black crystals, a gold crystal, part of the Sulawes species. It is especially worthwhile to be attentive to the characteristics of water in those aquariums where young shrimp are grown. If adult individuals can somehow withstand minor deviations from the norm, the young die almost immediately.