# fish hormones and more



## Flear (Oct 5, 2012)

as was explained to me (more than before) fish hormones can have a noticable effect on fish health, color, and development.

how do these hormones work ?
i don't mean what hormones do what for the fish.

but once hormones are released into the water column, ... what happens then ?
do they have a half-life and breakdown over time ?
are there natural processes in the tank that help break these hormones down ?

is there a minimum/maximum threshold that affects fish health ? (lesser curiosity on this one)

i am going to guess that hormones in fish are similar to hormones in people or other animals, ... and in time things will break down or otherwise be processed.

otherwise any closed lake or system would become a seething cesspool of aquatic life hormones within a relatively short time  ... and the worlds oceans have had millions of years to have things accumulate and build up, ...

so there's gotta be at least some processes that in one way or another these break down.... and hopefully ways to speed up this process.


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## sandybottom (Nov 29, 2012)

Study determines plants could absorb hormones before they hit water supply


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## Flear (Oct 5, 2012)

thanks, 

reading ...

"Preliminary data show that a small group of poplar trees reduce the concentration of zeranol by 80% in just four days," Card explains. "That's in a hydroponics system with no soil. It will be different when some of the compound absorbs into soil, but the poplars are turning out to be really efficient at picking up the zeranol."

in hydroponics, ... that's pretty much what our tanks are. i'm guessing that would require a very heavily planted tank to keep up with things then.

i know when my tank was so overgrown i had plants extending their stems above the water line all over the place, my water pH i couldn't get above about 6.5 (i was kinda panicking as this was hell on my snails) it was a literal almost floating island of plant mass about 3-6" under the surface that supported everything that was growing emersed.

one day i said "enough" cut that back, ... and all hell broke loose in the tank  massive ammonia spike pH climbed to who knows what (didn't have a high PH test kit) ... not a good situation.

to a degree i'm moving more towards that again, ... but only half the tank (a dark side - for the star wars fans) that i will let the plants grow dense, ... and encouraging riccia to grow as well, i liked the pearling it does, i dono if i'm right or not, but i would think anyway that suggests it is processing lots of nutrients as well as CO2.

could be this level of overgrown tank could deal with fish hormones similar to the experiment mentioned in that link ?

it's an idea, ... thanks for the info - also sounds like a rather new area of study in the scientific community


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