Study nr. 7 The importance of salt (salinity) for Mollies and other freshwater aquarium fish

Dear Agoras, Dear Fish keeper, you selected this study because you want to know something about salt and how it can be important for certain fish to survive, to be in better shape. And as a researcher, I get sometimes very interesting publications that I want to share with you because you can learn lessons from it, how to keep the fish in the best condition. So let me share here the study. I will show the link below where you can find your study yourself. When you're interested to see more details what's all been done, because I will give you the most important parts which I think I selected for you that might be most interesting. I don't want to go too much technical detail, just the general aspect of this study. It was the effects of salinity on the gill histology. In sin velifera, it's the molly the hyphen sin molly poifera. Because the abstract tells here what the study is about is fish live in aquatic areas with varying salinity from fresh water to seawater. The gills are one of the most important osmoregulatory organs for maintaining the saltwater balance. And in this study, changes in the gills of those molly hyphen mollies acclimated to 20, 30 or 40 and 50 parts per thousand of salinity in the laboratory were examined histologically and immune histochemically. I will not go too much in all details because it talks about the mucus and mitochondria, red cells and shock proteins. But what it was that it's based on the histological and the immunohistochemical results. It is thought that the cytological and molecular arrangements of the cells in the gills of this moly hyphen silfin moly under different levels of salinity are essential for the regulation of the iron and salt balance. And why do I give this study? Because I see a lot of those sailfin mollies die, getting weaked, getting skinny, emaciated and die because they're kept in soft, non salty water. Because this fish loves salty water. And you will see what is this to the fish. And that's why we can explain that the fish also, for these mollies and also other fish, were like salt water. They are a vital organ with important functions such as gas exchange, ion regulation, extretion, excretion of nitrogenous waste. So it's ammonia that is released by those gills. So they help the kidneys to release ammonia in the water and acid base regulation. The different cells in the gills perform these physiological tasks. And the gill epithelium contains pavement cells and mucous cells and mitochondria rich cells. And those cells play an important part when fish, for example, need to osmoregulate their salty contact of their body in soft water or in salty water. And those things are studied here in this study. Although the mucus has functions such as lubrication and preventing parasites and preventing microbial infections like bacterial infections or infections like white spot, it has been reported it is also involved in the ion regulation. And this will be showing in the study here that in the 150 brood size villifers aged 2 years and older were supplied by a producer. And they were acclimated for 7 days in 55 liters aquariums with zero salinity. In the reverse osmosis water, all acclimated that had soft water. So they started from zero and kept at 25 degrees Celsius and the pH between 7 and 8. And the experiment was started by adding 2% salt to all groups except the control group. So there was a control group, a placebo group, where we can look at what is happening when they don't get any salt. The experiment was continued under salinity levels of 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% were achieved with daily salinity increase of 2% in all groups and except for the control group. So they explained here what is histology researched about the immunohistochemistry, what is researched the analysis statistics. And I will give you a brief the results. Because the difference in the gel histology were observed at different salinity levels applied to the Venavera. And when the control group and salinity groups were compared, an increase in primary filament thickness was observed due to increased salt levels. And I'll explain you what that means through thickness by the increased salt level. And explain that with these pictures here. This happens here is the control group A. And here you see with the increased salt levels from B to C to D to E, how that changes in the different salinity and that thickness changes. And the changes also in mucous cells. If you have increasing salinity from abc, you can see what this means, what the salinity can do to the gilts. And in those cells which are incorporated in the the guilt tissue, there mitogenic activity, which is important in defense, immunity, defense. And you see it's growing and getting larger and in higher abundance in higher salinity waters. Also the mitochondria, red cells, you know, mitochondria are important for different physiological and immunity systems, defense systems. And the more salinity was given here, the better these cells were developed. So in the discussion we could conclude that the mitochondria rich cells per area increased and also in quantity increased in higher salinity. What does that mean? Well, that the. Well, we can go in detail on the stress proteins, but let's continue till the end. You got a big picture here. Well, in this study, important cellular changes in the filifens were clearly demonstrated with increasing salinity conditions. And the results of our study indicate that filiferas can acclimate to salinity more than seawater. And that cellular and molecular chains in the gills, one of the most important osmoregulatory organs, may be influential. Influential. In addition, velofera is the ideal species for osmoregulation studies because it has, well, it's able to live and reproduce in salty waters. Many details you can find here and do studies and also different studies explained that those fish do much better in salty waters. And that means when they don't get any salt at all. Well, I can say those fish will suffer eventually. And the same counts for guppies which are raised in salinity levels or other live bearers or brackish water fish. And if they are deprived of any salinity, they eventually will emaciate and has osmoregulatory problems and get skinny. Well, I hope this is a lesson for you to understand that some of those fish you need to keep in a certain amount of. Of salt in the aquarium and you cannot mix them with soft, non soft water with without any salts. So think about that when you keep your fish or when you want to breed fish. Thank you for watching and follow my other studies. Subscribe. Thank you.