Animal husbandry – Aquatic animal culturing – Fish culturing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-24
2002-11-12
Jordan, Charles T. (Department: 3643)
Animal husbandry
Aquatic animal culturing
Fish culturing
C119S268000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06477982
ABSTRACT:
DESCRIPTION
The present invention is concerned with agents and processes for the production of biologically advantageous to almost natural maintenance water, especially for aquaria and garden pond water, also from biologically unfavourable to harmful starting water.
In aquaria or in the maintenance of aquatic animals, for about 30 years it has become established practice partly or completely to exchange the maintenance water regularly by fresh water and thereby to reduce the loading of the maintenance water in relation to the water exchange rate.
Of the possible sources of fresh water, for example spring water, rainwater and tap water, tap water or drinking water has by far achieved the greatest importance because of its outstanding purity.
However, in the case of the use of tap or drinking water as fresh water for aquaria, problems arise since tap or drinking water is specially prepared, having regard to its use as nutriment for humans, in the local waterworks. Because of these special properties controlled by the drinking water regulations, drinking water differs considerably from natural, bioactive waters in the following aspects:
it is almost germ-free;
it contains no or only negligible amounts of organic materials;
it contains non-complexed heavy metals which are admittedly completely harmless for humans but which can be highly toxic for water organisms;
it is frequently mixed with disinfecting, degerminating compounds, for example chlorine or other active chlorine compounds, in order to ensure the hygienic character of the drinking water up to the final user;
the Ca:Mg ratio is often far too high and magnesium ions are often completely absent;
in inland regions, the iodine content is extremely low;
the redox character is in the strongly oxidising region, already brought about by the presence of chlorine and active chlorine compounds;
because of the above-described properties and especially because of the absence of organic compounds, it acts very aggressively on the sensitive mucous membranes of fish and other water organisms.
From all of the described properties of tap or drinking water, it follows that, because of its purity, it admittedly appears to be very suitable to improve loaded maintenance water by water exchange but this initially very positive aspect is nullified by the series of above-mentioned negative factors or is even reversed.
From DE 22 21 545, it is known to minimise or solve important aquarial problems of tap or drinking water by means of functional synthetic additives.
The problem of chlorine or active chlorine compounds can be solved by means of reduction by sodium thiosulphate.
Heavy metals can be removed by complexing with synthetic complex formers, for example ethylenediamine-tetraacetic acid (EDTA).
The aggressive behaviour of tap water can be ameliorated by the addition of polyvinylpyrrolidones.
The addition of vitamin B
1
has proved to be useful as an anti-stress component.
The acute negative aspects of tap or drinking water are admittedly dealt with, ameliorated or eliminated by these suggested agents but these measures introduce new and unnatural materials into the almost natural maintenance system, the effects of which on biological processes are not precisely known.
The biological decomposability of these synthetic compounds is also, as a rule, retarded or does not take place because of their xenobiotic (biologically foreign) nature.
It is known of EDTA and analogous compounds and of polyvinylpyrrolidones that they are not broken down at all or only very slowly. In the case of the use of thiosulphate as anti-chlorine reagent, depending upon the stoichiometry, there result further polysulphane-polysulphonic acids, for example tetrathionate, S
4
O
6
2−
, and other reaction products, the biological action of which is also not known. Thiosulphate and its complex subsequent products are biologically foreign and potentially harmful substances.
Summarising, it can be stated that the solutions to the problems described in DE 22 21 545 admittedly function satisfactorily from the chemical point of view but the biological effects thereof on the small ecosystems of aquaria and other maintenance systems is not known and, therefore, initially are to be regarded as being at most neutral.
With the present invention, it is achieved that all the above-described problems which arise in the case of the use of tap or drinking water for the exchange of water in biological maintenance systems are reduced or overcome without it resulting in the introduction of biologically or ecologically foreign materials into the maintenance systems, for example aquaria.
Surprisingly, all problems in the case of fresh tap or drinking water can be solved by not using the above-described synthetic compounds but rather exclusively materials or compounds which occur naturally or are produced in natural systems of organisms (vegetable and animal organisms and micro-organisms).
These materials are, in part, present as metabolic products in natural waters in steady state concentrations as the result of biological production and breakdown processes.
If the naturally occurring materials described in the present invention are used in order to eliminate the negative aspects which are involved with the use of fresh tap water, then there are achieved all the desired positive effects of an exchange of water in the case of the addition of fresh tap water to the maintenance system and thus the possibly damaging factors which are involved with an exchange of water are eliminated.
After the chemical reaction of the added natural additives in the fresh water, as unused materials and subsequent products there are only present compounds which can be broken down biologically without problems.
In addition to the reduction of the harmful factors, the added natural compounds themselves or the reaction or breakdown products thereof manifest further positive effects in the ecosystem, for example the aquarium.
The variant of the working up of biologically-ecologically unfavourable tap or drinking water, here presented as the solution according to the present invention, is novel and, in the totality of the positive actions, is also surprising for the expert. For the first time, it is possible to change sterile, aggressive tap or drinking water into almost natural biologically-friendly maintenance water with the use of natural active materials and, parallel thereto, to permit the introduction of further useful factors or to allow these to arise in biological ways.
In the following, the solutions of the problem according to the present invention are described on the basis of fresh water-problem factors for maintenance systems:
Natural reducing agents for chlorine and other active chlorine compounds:
For this purpose, all natural materials can be used which themselves are non-toxic and can be broken down biologically and manifest a reducing action with regard to chlorine and other active chlorine compounds, for example chloramine, chlorine dioxide and the like. Examples herefor include:
reducing carboxylic acids and the salts thereof, for example formic acid and oxalic acid;
natural compounds with aldehyde groups, for example, aldoses, uronic acids, such as erythrose, threose, arabinose, glucose, mannose, galactose, glucuronic acid, mannuronic acid and galacturonic acid;
compounds which contain thioether and thiohydroxy groups, for example methionine, cysteine, glutathione and D-penicillamine;
diverse natural reducing agents, for example ascorbic acid, tannic acid and tannins.
The concentrations used depend stoichiometrically on the concentrations of the oxidising agents to be expected (chlorine and active chlorine compounds) and are in the range of from 0.1-100 mg/1 and preferably of from 0.5-20 mg/1.
Natural complex formers which can be used for reducing the heavy metal toxicity admittedly mostly do not reach the extremely high complex formation constants of the synthetic complex formers, such as EDTA, DTPA and the like, but nevertheless also lead to a considerable lowering or even elimination of th
Baker Aileen J.
Federman Evan J.
Jordan Charles T.
Little Darryl C.
Warner-Lambert & Company
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