Glossary questions and requests

Discussion of things people would like to see added to the site, as well as changes to design layout. Also, help for people trying to work out technical issues. You should also report bugs, spelling mistakes here, queries and corrections to the cat-elog should also be posted here.
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Post by Shane »

Jools, I agree completely. But did you REALLY know what it actually stood for?
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Post by Silurus »

I found that coloring the bones can be somewhat therapeutic, so I went ahead and did the rest (sorry, Amanda).

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Post by Silurus »

Amanda,

Here's a new one for you to work on. I promise to leave this one alone this time.

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Post by bronzefry »

Quite alright and understandable. You answered a question I had: do I shade in both sides if the bones are bilateral? Just one side. I finished my other work early and did just one bone, the extrascapular(I did one side). It's kind of a neat way to unwind. Coloring books for grown-ups. :D What species is this?
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Post by Jools »

bronzefry wrote:What species is this?
Some kind of Ariid?

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Post by Silurus »

The dorsal view of the skull is a Chrysichthys and the ventral view, of an Arius. You can also see why ariids are sometimes known as crucifix catfishes, because of the basioccipital and the transcapular ligaments forming a cross.

Jools, I've trashed all the image files, so you would have to use the ones in this post.
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Post by bronzefry »

To make sure I'm understanding this correctly, the skull, orbit, snout and upper mandible are all one bone (i.e.all one color).
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Post by Silurus »

No, there are quite a number of bones. Here is a rough guide I quickly cobbled up.

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Post by bronzefry »

Here's the first try:
Image
Image
Image
Thanks for the help. It will make this go much faster. I'll fix these up in the morning. Is this what you have in mind?
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Post by Silurus »

Looks good enough, except that you did not shade all of the lateral ethmoid (the second pic) and the vomer (the third pic), and you included part of the vomer in the parasphenoid (first pic). I would also reduce the line delineating the shaded portion to 0 point. Just go with the bones I shaded as the first iteration. The rest of the bones are either those already illustrated in the other diagram, or could be overly complex.
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Post by Jools »

Silurus wrote:Jools, I've trashed all the image files, so you would have to use the ones in this post.
I Still have this online:

Image

To repeat myself, what I really need is someone to learn flash and do this rather than have load of messy flat image pages. I'd do it myself but I've already been saying that for 2 years.

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Post by bronzefry »

Thanks, Silurus. Sorry, Jools. Wish I knew.
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Post by Silurus »

Jools wrote:[To repeat myself, what I really need is someone to learn flash and do this rather than have load of messy flat image pages. I'd do it myself but I've already been saying that for 2 years.
Any reason why a non animated version could not be in place, even if temporarily?
I mean, you would at least have had a better anatomy diagram than the current one these last two years.
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Post by Jools »

Silurus wrote:
Jools wrote:[To repeat myself, what I really need is someone to learn flash and do this rather than have load of messy flat image pages. I'd do it myself but I've already been saying that for 2 years.
Any reason why a non animated version could not be in place, even if temporarily?
I mean, you would at least have had a better anatomy diagram than the current one these last two years.
Just my illogical adherence to a philosphy of "if you're going to do something, do it the best you can". Plus I just don't know how long it would actually take me to learn flash; it might be just as long as it takes me to clean and assemble the image.

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Post by bronzefry »

Here are six attempts. The lowest setting is "1" for the width of anything in the Elements program. I tried using 50% on the pencil, rather than 100% to compensate. For some reason, the outline is coming up very bold, without any adjustments.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

I can convert the files to Acrobat(I believe the software is bundled together with Macromedia, etc.). I use Acrobat for construction specifications. Nothing glamorous.
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Post by Jools »

bronzefry wrote:I can convert the files to Acrobat(I believe the software is bundled together with Macromedia, etc.). I use Acrobat for construction specifications. Nothing glamorous.
Hang fire, I'm looking into the flash thing today.

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Post by Jools »

OK, on the anatomy front I've worked out what we're going to do. After a five hour training session this morning I figured out that flash was too hard to learn in the time I have available and wouldn't be as useful as I had imagined. Avoiding its use also keeps the site free of plug-ins which is a nice place to be.

It is also clear that flash skills aren't commonly found and, to enjoy the sort of participation we've seen with the glossary, many more people are more at home in an art application.

So, I've concocted a prototype page here: http://www.planetcatfish.com/core/anatomy.php

Have a play around with it, any comments would be appreciated before we strike out and use it. When that happens I'll be looking for folks to colour in parts of the catfish in red! If you feel the need to do that, use this master - http://www.planetcatfish.com/png/anatom ... blank).png - NOT the one on the page.

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Post by bronzefry »

I like it! :D Anybody else?

Zoonosis: A disease that can be transmitted from an animal to a human.
Total Length: Length of a fish from the tip of the snout to the end of the tail. Abbreviation: TL.
Standard Length: Length of a fish from the tip of the snout to the beginning of the tail. Abbreviation: SL.
Milt: Fish sperm.

This is another from Shane's list and it's just about the same everywhere:
Gonads: Reproductive organs. Ovaries in females. Testes in males.

pH: Literally pondus Hydrogeni. The measure of a liquid's acidity or alkalinity. pH is measured from 0 (very acidic) to 14 (very alkaline) with 7.0 being neutral. This measurement is logarithmic, meaning any change is significant. A sudden change in pH will cause a great deal of stress, or may even lead to the death of a fish.

GH: General(or permanent) hardness is the measurement of the overall concentration of calcium, magnesium salts and other ions dissolved in water.

KH: Also called temporary or carbonate hardness. Sometimes referred to as buffering capacity. This is a measurement of calcium and magnesium bicarbonates in water. KH is a component of GH (general hardness).

Conductivity is a little confusing to me. Something about water's ability to pass a current through anions and cations? I can see the words and I have nifty monitor to measure it, but I don't understand it.
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Post by Silurus »

A note to the aspiring artist(s): cut and paste the final link in Jool's last message (including everything up to and including the ".png").

I forsee a problem with small structures (e.g. nuchal plate) being not very visible. One solution would be to make the template bigger.
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Post by MatsP »

Ammonia - NH3/NH4 ions. Strongly smelling substance that is the first stage of breakdown of fish waste, food and plant matter in water. Can be converted to Nitrite by "good bacteria".

Nitrite - NO2 ions. In aquatic terms, this is a by-product from fish waste and other breakdown under water. This is VERY strongly poisonous in that it, amongst other things, prevents the fish's oxygen uptake. Can be converted by "good bacteria" to Nitrate.

Nitrate - NO3 ions. The "final" stage of breakdown of fish waste, food and plant matter. It's mildly poisonous to fish, but most fish will survive fine in water with 100 ppm.

PPM - Parts Per Million. One gram in a 1000 kg, or one milligram in one kg. As long as we're talking water, it's also one milligram per liter.

PPT - Parts per thousand. One gram in a kg. In water, also one gram per liter.

PPB - Parts per Billion. One gram in one million kg. Also, in water, one microgram per liter. A single grain of salt in a medium to large aquarium is in the ppb range.

Chlorine - Cl2. Chlorine is added to most domestic water supply to kill bacteria in the water. It's an irritant on fish, and also kills the beneficial bacteria that does the ammonia-nitrite-nitrate conversion in the filter. Aerate the water for 24 hours or using a dechlorinator will remove this.

Chloramine - A combination of Ammonia and Chlorine. It's a more potent disinfectant than the Chlorine on it's own, and takes longer to leave the water. Most dechlorinators will remove chloramine as well.

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Post by Jools »

Silurus wrote:I forsee a problem with small structures (e.g. nuchal plate) being not very visible. One solution would be to make the template bigger.
I think I can cross that bridge when we come to it by adding a zoomed in picture - hence why I'm wanting "aspiring artists" to use the big file rather than the small one.

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Post by bronzefry »

Thank you very much, Mats! :D I'll put the ppm, ppb, etc. in today. Let's see if anybody has anything to add to the others: pH, GH, KH, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, etc. If there are no more comments on these words, I'll put them in on Tuesday.
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Post by Deb »

No hurry, but here are a few more to add if you like them.

T.D.S. - Total Dissolved Solids. The total dissolved salts in a water sample, and basically the same as total hardness.

poikilotherm - a cold-blooded organism, whose body temperature varies with its environment, syn. ectotherm.

Is the term lamella (pl. lamellae) used to describe the gill filaments of a fish? Or is it just for mushrooms ...
I thought it was used for fish, too.

Floating Meadows - In the Amazon, drifting islands of reeds, twigs, and broken branches which serve as a home to certain catfish, and other fish, as well as land animals.

(I have had my version of one of these set up for about two years, with these variations: I use strands of Bacopa, hardwood twigs, duckweed, and water lettuce and just let the outflow take it where it wants to go.)

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Post by MatsP »

Here's a few more from the top of my head.

Nitrogen cycle - This term relates to the breakdown cycle of proteins, which is protein (amino acids) break down into ammonia, which, by friendly bacteria, is converted to nitrite and then nitrate, which is then taken up by plants to make new proteins (amino acids), which becomes food for herbivores, that are eaten by carnivores, that produce waste which is broken down, and so on.

Mature tank - A tank that has a full complement of nitrate cycle bacteria.

Cycling - The process of getting a tank mature.

Cycled tank - A tank that is mature.

New Tank Syndrome - Problems caused by the fish suffering from poisoning/irritation from an incomplete nitrate cycle - as the term implies, this happens on newly setup tanks, particularly if they are stocked too heavily, too early.

NTS - Short for new tank syndrome.

MTS - Multi/Many tank syndrome. The consequence of trying to keep many different species of fish.

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Post by Shane »

GH: General(or permanent) hardness is the measurement of the overall concentration of calcium, magnesium salts and other ions dissolved in water.
I believe, but am not 100 perecnt sure, that GH is just a shortened form of dGH (deutsche Gesamthärte). There is a common English language interpretation of this to "degrees German Hardness," but that is not literally what the letters dGH stand for. dGH was later shortened to GH in English as "(G)General (H)Hardness." dKH is Karbonathärte. Gesamthärte= total hardness of water. So the GH (or dGH) is the water's total hardness, but GH is "Gesamthärte" not "General Hardness."
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Post by bronzefry »

I read something like that last night, Shane. Mary Bailey in her "Fishlopaedia" gives a listing of the different types of "hardness:" German, French, American and English(Clark). It varies from French hardness at 10.0ppm to German hardness=17.9ppm(listed as dh). Certain test kits use certain scales. It appears there's little uniformity or agreement. I'm going to hold off on gh and kh for a bit. It seems like we have some things to work out. I'll put in pH, chlorine and chloramine today. Nitrate and nitrite tomorrow. I'll print up the new words and read them over tonight. Thanks, everybody!

Should conductivity and TDS be two separate definitions?
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Post by bronzefry »

Mike Noren just posted a definition of conductivity/TDS. Does this sound about right?(I've asked his permission to use it in the glossary)
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 7292#87292
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Post by MatsP »

I think TDS should be separate from conductivity, where TDS explains that TDS meters do not ACTUALLY measure TDS, but conductivity and then converts to an guesstimate of TDS.

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Post by bronzefry »

Here's my first attempts:

Conductivity: Literally, the measure of electricity through water. For aquariasts, this translates into a measurement of which ions, such as calcium, hydroden, sodium, etc. may be present in the water. A very high level of conductivity could indicate either polluted water or water with too many additives, such as plant fertilizers or food. Water with very low conductivity may be acheived through reverse osmosis filtration or deionization. Conductivity is measured by electronic meter, using units called microSeimens. Also see TDS.

TDS: Total Dissolved Solids. A way to measure water quality by measuring inorganic salts larger than 1.0 mm. May be done in the laboratory or by an electronic meter. Also see conductivity.

Reverse Osmosis: Also called "RO" filtration. A method of filtration where water is forced across a semi-permeable membrane. The most common type of membrane is made of Thin Composite Film(TFC). This method is between 94-99% effective in laboratory conditions. Cellulose Tri-Acetate(CTA) membranes are less effective and less common. Low water pressure and exceedingly poor water quality will reduce the lifespan of an RO membrane. The typical layout of an "RO" filter is a 1 or 5 micron pre-filter, followed by a carbon block pre-filter and then the RO membrane.

Deionization: A form of water filtration that creates 99.9% pure water through ion exchange resins.
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Post by MatsP »

"A way to measure water quality by measuring inorganic salts larger than 1.0 mm" - this sentence doesn't make sense to me.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. I think it is this: "A way to measure water quality by measuring salts". Of course, there are (almost) no "organic" salts (I'm not sure if Calcium acetate would be a organic salt - not that you'd find that in aquarium/tap water anyways).

I would then want to add:

TDS-meter: A conductivity meter, which uses a scale of PPM (mg/l) of salts dissolved in the water. Note that the value from this meter is based on some artificial ("ideal") mix of salts, and the actual amount in milligrams in a lab-test will be different from what the meter reads.

To complete your list of water purification:
Distilled water: Water that has been processed (boiled and condensated) to remove organic and inorganic substances.

And some words that cropped up here in the discussion of TDS etc:

Inorganic: Inorganic chemical compounds that are those not consisting of carbon-hydrogen combinations. Sodium chloride NaCl (regular table salt) and caclcium carbonate (CaCO3) are examples of inorganic substances.

Organic: Carbon-hydrogen based chemical compounds. Ethane (C2H6), Lactic Acid (CH3-CH0H-C00H) are examples of a simple organic substances.

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