acid-base chemistry

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: acid-base chemistry
From: George Booth <booth at hpmtlgb1_lvld.hp.com>
Date: Fri, 19 May 1995 09:57:09 -0600
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 19 May 1995 03:39:03 EDT." <199505190739.DAA10475 at looney_actwin.com>

> From: martin-h at mail_utexas.edu (Martin Harriman)
> 
> There is one common thread I have seen in a few recent messages here and in
> *.aquaria; a horror of "chemical soup."  Ummmm...  what's that when it's at
> home?  You can in fact have a nice stable water chemistry with several
> buffer systems running at once.  You can even calculate pretty easily what
> the acid titration curve would look like with your favorite mix.  So why
> the horror of having more than pure carbonate chemistry affecting pH?  What
> strange soups are people creating?

Most of us are attempting to grow aquatic plants.  Aquatic plants are
very sensitive to water chemistry.  Unknown and uncontrolled water 
chemistries are not condusive to successful aquatic gardening.  

> A bit of trivia for buffer loonies:  your blood combines carbonate and
> phosphate buffering systems (actively regulated, at least while you are
> healthy).

It's a good thing sunlight doesn't get into your body or you would be
full of algae :-). 

George