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Re: Acid & Carbonate Buffering
On Sun, 17 Dec 2000, Alex R. wrote:
> I've recently conducted a small experiment where I added a drop of sulfuric
> acid to a sample of water with an initial KH of 6. I measured the KH after
> the addition, and found that it dropped to 0. So my question is, if only
> enough strong acid is added to decrease the KH of the water to somewhere
> above 0, it this water still considered carbonate-buffered? Can a strong
> acid be used as a means to decrease KH in an aquarium with CO2 injection?
Generally this should work fine. Whether or not it remains carbonate
buffered depends on how low you drop the buffer capacity and on what
competing buffers may be present in the water. You should be able to drop
the buffer capacity down to 3-4 degrees without a problem. Your results
dropping it into the 0-3 range may be a little iffy.
But why would you want to mess with strong acids and whatever risks and/or
mess that entails? There's nothing wrong with a buffer capacity of 6.
Roger Miller