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Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V5 #16



> Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 01:12:42 -0700
> From: Jerry Baker <jerrybaker at weirdness_com>
> Subject: Re: Potassium permanganata
> 
> JOlson8590 at aol_com wrote:
> > 
> > I would give you the caution statement for DiHydrogen Oxide, but I
> > fear that might be interpreted as disparaging your giving us the MSDS
> > for Potassium Permanganate, and I certainly do not wish to do that.
> 
> I have heard of water described that way before, but it always seemed to
> be unnatural. Wouldn't it be more correct to say hydrogen hydroxide?
> After all, acid-base theory would have that water is really a collection
> of roughly equal parts of H+ and OH- ions...no?

You have, I think, missed the point of Jean's post.  The point being that
MSDSs need to be taken with a grain of salt (pun intended ;-), and some
common sense wrt the amount of the material you are handling and the level
of exposure/hazard you are really likely to encounter.  MSDSs are
government-mandated boiler-plate CYA documents, which can often make even
common substances like water or NaCl sound like chemical warfare agents
when read by someone without any familiarity with the material in
question.  For example, if I handed you an MSDS for NaCl, edited so that
it refered to NaCl only as Substance X, you'd probably be afraid to go
near the stuff without a HazMat suit on.

So, yes, it is prudent to take some precautions when handling some of the
chemicals we use in our tanks, but posting a whole MSDS to the list is
probably counter productive.  If you really think folks should read an
MSDS, then just posting a link to it should be sufficient.

That said, if you can read between the lines of the generic boiler-plate
language, MSDSs do generally contain _some_ useful information.

--Bill