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Re: Wonder Water



Rene writes:
> Well I'm back to square one pondering why it is that when I do a 
> partial water change it is like I added some kind of miracle drug 
> to my tank. The photosynthesis just takes off in a spectacular 
> fashion within minutes of the change.
> 
> Some of you have suggested that I'm simply seeing bubbles that were 
> carried in with the new water. But I know this is photosynthesis 
> taking place. It's highly unlikely that air in the new water would 
> stream out of particular areas of leaves (like areas with wounds).
> 
> I thought from earlier tests that maybe the new water was 
> introducing more CO2 into the tank and this was causing it. But now 
> that I have a digital PH monitor, I know this is not the case. The 
> PH would drop when I add the new CO2 enriched water. What it does 
> is rise about .03 points for about 10 minutes

Then the dissolved gas in your tap water is not CO2. Cold water
holds more dissolved gases than warm water. The gas in your tap
water is probably primarily Nitrogen just like in the air. To
illustrate this effect, draw off a nice cold glass of water and
let it stand on the table for several minutes. You will find
pearls of gas on the inside of the glass in a few minutes. You can
see the same effect as you heat tap water on the stove before it
reaches the boiling point.

The gas bubbles form where there are instability sites such as on
a damaged leaf. Now if you cut a stem in half, you can observe
bubbles coming from the air channels in the stem. To be sure you
have oxygen pearling you have to be certain the oxygen gas in the
water has reached the saturation point! A good plant to create lots
of oxygen is Elodea. Why not invest in an oxygen test kit and
measure the oxygen content at the start of the day and then
later on after the lights have been on for several hours. You
should see a noticeable difference and this is due to photosynthesis.

Steve