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Habib
04/01/2011, 07:00 AM
A collaboration of Russian scientists and some of the largest public aquariums in the world has shed a light on the cause of OTS and also a remedy for it.

With aging of water the D2O (deuterium oxide) and HDO (deuterium protium oxide) content of water decreases. D (deuterium) is a heavy isotope of H (hydrogen).

D2O and HDO are natural components of water. With time this amount decreases as it is preferentially incorporated instead of H in e.g. various amino acids and proteins.

D (deuterium) is very important in low concentration for biological funcions but becomes toxic in a too high concentration.

Depletion of deuterium also gives false values when the density of water (salinity) is measured.

Since depletion is the cause of OTS, the scientists are now working on a method to test for deuterium by public aquaria, a method for supplemention is something which they already have worked out.


From wikipedia:



Effect on biological systems

Heavy isotopes of chemical elements have slightly different chemical behaviors, but for most elements the differences in chemical behavior between isotopes are far too small to use, or even detect. For hydrogen, however, this is not true. The larger chemical isotope-effects seen with deuterium and tritium manifest because bond energies in chemistry are determined in quantum mechanics by equations in which the quantity of reduced mass of the nucleus and electrons appears. This quantity is altered in heavy-hydrogen compounds (of which deuterium oxide is the most common and familiar) more than for heavy-isotope substitution in other chemical elements. This isotope effect of heavy hydrogen is magnified further in biological systems, which are very sensitive to small changes in the solvent properties of water.



Heavy water is the only known chemical substance that affects the period of circadian oscillations, consistently increasing the length of each cycle. The effect is seen in unicellular organisms, green plants, isopods, insects, birds, mice, and hamsters. The mechanism is unknown.[9]

To perform their tasks, enzymes rely on their finely tuned networks of hydrogen bonds, both in the active center with their substrates, and outside the active center, to stabilize their tertiary structures. As a hydrogen bond with deuterium is slightly stronger[10] than one involving ordinary hydrogen, in a highly deuterated environment

Yogre
04/01/2011, 07:03 AM
The fact that this discovery was published on April 1st isn't significant, is it? ;)

Habib
04/01/2011, 07:09 AM
The fact that this discovery was published on April 1st isn't significant, is it? ;)


It was not published today.

Yogre
04/01/2011, 07:10 AM
Ah.

Randy Holmes-Farley
04/01/2011, 10:47 AM
But it was posted here today. :lol:

Nice to hear from you, Habib. :)

James404
04/01/2011, 11:31 AM
Would something like routine water changes prevent this? Forgive me since I am not very savvy with chemistry and can just barely grasp what this means.

Randy Holmes-Farley
04/01/2011, 12:19 PM
It means it is April 1. :)

James404
04/01/2011, 12:36 PM
It means it is April 1. :)

LOL thanks Randy

Habib
04/01/2011, 01:31 PM
But it was posted here today. :lol:

Nice to hear from you, Habib. :)

:D

Thanks Randy! :)

Nice to see you too here! :)

HighlandReefer
04/01/2011, 02:36 PM
Never heard the term used before. That was good Habib. :lol:

"Circadian rhythm" From Wikipedia:

"Some features of the human circadian biological clockA circadian rhythm is an endogenously driven roughly 24-hour cycle in biochemical, physiological, or behavioural processes. Circadian rhythms have been widely observed, in plants, animals, fungi and cyanobacteria (see bacterial circadian rhythms). The term "circadian" comes from the Latin circa, meaning "around", and diem or dies, meaning "day". The formal study of biological temporal rhythms such as daily, tidal, weekly, seasonal, and annual rhythms is called chronobiology. Although circadian rhythms are endogenous ("built-in", self-sustained), they are adjusted (entrained) to the environment by external cues called zeitgebers, the primary one of which is daylight.

[edit] HistoryThe earliest known account of a circadian process dates from the 4th century BC, when Androsthenes, a ship captain serving under Alexander the Great, described diurnal leaf movements of the tamarind tree.[1]

The first recorded observation of an endogenous circadian oscillation was by the French scientist Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan in 1729. He noted that 24-hour patterns in the movement of the leaves of the plant Mimosa pudica continued even when the plants were kept in constant darkness, in the first experiment to attempt to distinguish an endogenous clock from responses to daily stimuli.[2][3]

In 1896, Patrick and Gilbert observed that during a prolonged period of sleep deprivation, sleepiness increases and decreases with a period of approximately 24 hours.[4] In 1918, J.S. Szymanski showed that animals are capable of maintaining 24-hour activity patterns in the absence of external cues such as light and changes in temperature.[5] Joseph Takahashi discovered the first mammalian 'clock gene' in 1994.[6][7]

The term "circadian" was coined by Franz Halberg in the late 1950s.[8]"

Mr. Wiggles
04/01/2011, 04:54 PM
Is this actually a joke? I know that there was a study done in which a plant was watered with D2O and it only grew to half the height of a plant watered with H2O due to the kinetic isotope effect. I think that a kinetic isotope effect in an aquarium could be plausible because the H2O would evaporate more readily which, without water changes, would enrich the tank in D2O. Increasing levels of D2O incorporation into the organism can cause problems. Is this just a case of a serious post inadvertently on a bad day?

bertoni
04/01/2011, 05:21 PM
Okay, I had to delete some posts about adding a depleted uranium tamper to deuterium-filled tanks. I don't think that the proposed designs would add that special glow to a tank, and there are health and safety issues involved.

Randy Holmes-Farley
04/01/2011, 05:28 PM
Is this just a case of a serious post inadvertently on a bad day?


No, not from Habib. He knows the entire premise is, well, stupid. :D

That isn't to say that D2O wouldn't be a problem if you had millions of dollars and wanted to keep an aquarium filled with it, but the isotopes in normal aquarium water won't change over time, and certainly have no biological significance or any impact on salinity measurements via density. :)

Of course, you might have been fooling me by even asking... ;)

tmz
04/01/2011, 08:33 PM
I heard Purple UP can fix this problem if dosed daliy.

I believe using old tanks ,especially those with metal frames may contribute to OTS.

Mr. Wiggles
04/01/2011, 10:11 PM
Actually I wasn't fooling you by asking. Actually I think that D2O is isolated from seawater by evaporation, so it does seem conceivable that a tank could become enriched in D2O over a long period of time (years). I think that there could be a significant difference in the rate of some biological processes due to the difference in the rate of deuterium and hydrogen for proton transfer reactions and such. Maybe I am just way over thinking here, but an interesting thought none the less.

Randy Holmes-Farley
04/02/2011, 06:38 AM
I don't doubt D2O would evaporate more slowly, but note that Habib claimed it was being depleted, not increased. :)

"With aging of water the D2O (deuterium oxide) and HDO (deuterium protium oxide) content of water decreases. D (deuterium) is a heavy isotope of H (hydrogen)."

m2434
04/02/2011, 07:52 AM
LOL, well, it's been a while, but I did actually take a Chronobiology course in college. I just pulled out my old textbook Dunlap et al. (2004) and I can't find any reference to deuterium :eek1: I think these guys completely missed the ball :lolspin:

Paul B
04/02/2011, 07:57 AM
Dam, I wonder when Old Tank Syndrome kicks in?

m2434
04/02/2011, 08:10 AM
Dam, I wonder when Old Tank Syndrome kicks in?


Paul, you haven't seen it yet because you collect your own water. As a result of collecting too close to shore it's probably contaminated with deuterium ;)

Paul B
04/02/2011, 09:30 AM
Thats probably it. I also have one of those watches that glow in the dark, that is probably some sort of radioactive substance that slows down OTS

bertoni
04/02/2011, 04:27 PM
Hmm, a tritium-enhanced tank. Could be cool.

Alex T.
04/02/2011, 09:15 PM
I feel so inferior. This is one of the rare times when I'm the only one in the room who doesn't understand the joke no matter how hard I try.

I'll just make myself feel better by watching some Tom & Jerry on the Cartoon Network.....:lmao:

Habib
04/04/2011, 10:25 AM
Bazinga! As Sheldoon Cooper from the American serie Big Bang Theory which is aired here. :D

FWIW, for those who are taking it too serious, it was a fools day joke. :)


I feel so inferior. This is one of the rare times when I'm the only one in the room who doesn't understand the joke no matter how hard I try.

I'll just make myself feel better by watching some Tom & Jerry on the Cartoon Network.....:lmao: