Water quality problems...

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: Water quality problems...
From: George Booth <booth at hpmtlgb1_lvld.hp.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 10:18:14 -0600
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 16 Sep 1995 03:39:02 EDT." <199509160739.DAA24119 at looney_actwin.com>

> From: Mike Bateman <vandi at well_com>
> Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 20:27:55 -0700
> 
> pH                      7.1
> Alkalinity (Total)      221 ppm
>     Bicarbonate         269 ppm (?)
>     Carbonate             0 ppm (?)
> 
> There are other values.  I'm confused on the Alkalinity.  I thought KH
> was suppose to be Carbonate hardness.  This shows that to be zero while
> total alkalinity is sky high.  This is confusing.

KH comes from both carbonate AND bicarbonate; they are in equilibrium
and their proportion depends on pH.  It's strange that 'total
alkalinity' is less than bicarbonate.  Perhaps some other acid is
reducing the total.  Note that this situation would throw off a CO2
reading determined from a KH/pH chart, since most "KH" test kits 
measure total alkalinity, not just carbonate hardness.  


> Calcium                  62 ppm
> Magnesium                30 ppm
> Harness (Total)         281 ppm
>     Carbonate           221 ppm
>     Non-Carbonate        60 ppm

Hmmm, "General Hardness" is usually Ca AND Mg but the values here seem to
indicate just Ca. 

George Booth from Northern Colorado