Re: water chemistry textbook?

[DandelionSea at aol_com]

Can someone please recommend a good water chemistry text book,
something that will help me follow all the chemistry-heavy threads on
this list and its archives?

thanks,
    shireen, the chemistry-challenged aquarist

Shireen,
       I was quite confused at first by most of the technical aspects of this 
hobby when I began to take an interest in it.  If you want a good book that 
concentrates mostly on good ways to grow aquatic plants and explains much of 
the chemistry in easy-to-understand terms, I recommend Diana Walstad's "Ecology 
of the Planted Aquarium."  She goes over a lot of the sources of chemicals in 
the aquarium, and her section on Carbon is particularly useful, as well as the 
one on substrate and water purification/nutrient uptake by aquatic plants.  
This may not be the BEST book available that deals with aquatic chemistry, and 
certainly not the most technical, but it has given me a much deeper 
understanding of water than I ever expected to have.  The book runs about $30.  I hope 
this helps you out.

Ciao,
Brian Rippon