In recent decades, the world of aquariums has experienced a real revolution and there is no irony in this statement. Appeared on sale not only the most diverse forms and color variations of fish, but also crustaceans. A novice aquarist sometimes just gets dizzy when he gets to a bird market or a quality pet store with a lot of live goods. But all this diversity has a downside - many species of fish, shrimp and other underwater inhabitants are so demanding on conditions of detention that they require osmosis for an aquarium or other complex systems.
What is osmosis for?
To people far from aquaristics, it may seem strange why osmosis is needed at all. But for those who are at least a little familiar with keeping and breeding fish, the answer to this question will be clear - osmosis for an aquarium is necessary to reduce the level of water hardness.
The fact is that many types of aquarium fish are quite demanding on water parameters, such as hardness, softness, acidity, etc. But it is especially importantobserve the required parameters for a particular species during the spawning period; without this, even spawning often does not occur. Yes, and to raise the fry, it is important to maintain the necessary parameters, otherwise it simply will not survive (for example, red neon)!
Don't confuse systems
When considering water treatment, it is important to understand the differences between simple osmosis and reverse osmosis for an aquarium. To make it clearer, let us briefly consider the principle of operation of these two systems. So:
- Osmosis. To obtain purified water, two communicating vessels are taken, the connection between them occurs due to a semi-impermeable membrane. It resists the flow of water, which will flow from a vessel in which there is less resistance to one where it is greater. This is how the osmosis plant functions.
- 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 it is worth buying an osmosis unit?
It is not always necessary for you to purchase any aquarium equipment if you have bought an aquarium and have fish. Much depends on the size of the 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 keep inIf there are beautiful, but undemanding fish, then you don’t need a reverse osmosis filter for an aquarium. But if you plan not only to keep many species, but also professionally breed them, then you cannot do without such equipment.
The choice of system depends on the volume of weekly clean water required for change. For several aquariums with a volume of 400 liters or more, equipment that produces from 200 liters will be enough for you. This is due to the fact that you still will not change a large percentage of the water in the aquarium at once, but will replace it gradually.
Osmosis and marine aquarium
Perhaps one of the most difficult areas in home aquarism can be called a marine aquarium. Creating a house of a piece of the sea is only possible for an experienced aquarist, it is better for beginners not to even try to do it.
The whole difficulty lies not in creating the required water parameters, but in constantly maintaining them 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 such a situation, osmosis for a marine aquarium is a real salvation.
But it is worth remembering that before adding purified water, you need to throw in all the required additives (sea s alt, etc.), and only by comparing the parameters in the new water with the water composition in the aquarium, it can be poured into the aquarium.
Osmosis unit selection
Decide which osmosis for the aquariumwill fit better, 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 fish species, then you will need an osmosis unit. But there is no need to buy too powerful equipment, because it will turn out that all the power reserve will not be used, and you will pay more than you should!
Well, one more criterion that affects the price of equipment. This is the degree of final purification of water. 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 in order not to overpay.
You can create an osmosis for an aquarium with your own hands, but this requires technical knowledge and some experience. Yes, and the equipment created independently will be largely inferior to the industrial one, both in terms of the percentage of water purification and in terms of volume!
Terms of Use
So, we figured out what osmosis is for an aquarium, now it’s worth saying a few words about the rules for its use:
- The first and most important rule to 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 mixed partially with the old aquarium. The explanation is simple - in nature there is also no ideal environment, and by placing fish in pure osmosis, you risk killing them.
- Don't changea 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 an aquarium, can be fatal. The fact is that for many generations the fish have managed to adapt to new water parameters and natural characteristics are no longer important for them.
But still, there are a number of fish that without osmosis will not regularly give offspring, in particular, these are fish of the Cichlid family.
Keeping shrimp in an aquarium
Since the late 2000s, keeping ornamental shrimp in an aquarium has become fashionable. Some of these species look very attractive and are quite undemanding to water parameters. These are shrimp belonging to the Neocaridine family.
But there are other species that have just a great color, but are very demanding on water quality. One of the main requirements for their maintenance is to maintain absolute cleanliness in the aquarium. And here you simply cannot do without osmosis for the aquarium.
These species include red and black crystals, gold crystal, part of the Sulawesian species. It is especially worth being attentive to the characteristics of the water in those aquariums where juvenile shrimp are grown. If adults can somehow withstand minor deviations from the norm, then juveniles die almost immediately.
