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Nadine
Age: 42
Joined: 23 Jan 2006
Posts: 26
Location: Germany
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With increasing popularity of shrimpkeeping in aquaristics, the number of reports about sudden shrimp deaths in connection with oxalic acid has been rising.
Even shrimp and plant dealers are increasingly more attentive to this problem, and we would like to give you some information on the subject as follows.
Oxalic acid - a dark legend?
Almost every shrimp owner has already heard of oxalic acid in connection with sudden shrimp deaths. Above all nearly always in connection with certain aquarium plants such as anubias and cryptocorynes, which both belong to the arums.
To this date, there is still no proof if these deaths have occurred due to oxalic acid. However, there are also no well-founded arguments that would speak against this.
It is, however, very interesting that the toxicity of oxalic acid has been playing an important role in small animal keeping and breeding and pest control for quite a long time. There are serious warnings against feeding small animals with fodder containing oxalic acid. In pest control, oxalic acid is e.g. used to fight mites..
In humans, the intake of higher amounts of oxalic acid can lead to serious health damage.
It has been proven that arums such as Anubias and Cryptocoryne contain a high percentage of oxalic acid in their roots and their rhizomes.
Maybe the lack of information is due to the fact that shrimpkeeping is a relatively recent hobby? Therefore we'd like to describe here what oxalic acid is and how it works.
What oxalic acid is and where it is contained:
Oxalic acid, in former times known as “clover acid” belongs to the most common, strongly corroding plant acids. It occurs in form of its salts (oxalates) in leaves, roots and plant bark in different concentrations. The salts (sodium, potassium and ammonium salts) form colorless crystals which taste strongly sour.
Many plants (e.g. Dieffenbachia and swiss cheese plant (Monstera)) have a high content of oxalic acid as contact poison (primarily available as small oxalate needles) for self-protection. If the plant is damaged, these needles penetrate skin and mucous membranes and rapidly cause strong and painful swellings.
A very high content of oxalic acid among others have fresh spinach, parsley, celery, chard, beets, orache, sorrel and rhubarb.
Effects of oxalic acid:
The poisonous effect is based on a disturbance of the calcium household.
This highly water-soluble substance easily forms a compound with calcium. The vitally necessary Ca ions are precipitated in the form of insoluble calcium oxalate, which prevents the absorption of calcium by the body. Calcium oxalate can crystalize in the uretha and the kidneys.
In nature, calcium oxalate develops frequently when plant cells die.
The acid in high doses and its soluble salts have corrosive effects, which cause substantial irritations to the skin and mucous membranes, in particular in the small intestine. When large quantities of the dissolved salts are absorbed by into the cell, the tissue is depleted of the vital calcium.
German version written by Lidija http://www.garnelenforum.de/ftopic878.html |
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