Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #577

[Craig Bingman <cbingman at netcom_com>]

> >From: mark.fisher at tpwd_state.tx.us
> >Date: Wed, 12 Mar 97 11:13:45 cst
> >Subject: Water color
> >
> >     >If you don't believe me, do 
> >     >the test that I suggested. . .
> [clip]
> >     >Remember, pure 
> >     >water will have a light blue hue when you put it in a white 
> >     >container.
> 
> >     I do ALL my water changes in a five gallon white poly bucket, and I 
> >     can assure you my water is not yellow.  The tank water is not yellow 
> >     and the bucket water is not yellow; it is colorless.

If it appears colorless, then it has a small amount of yellowing 
substances present.

> >     I must also disagree with your observation that you can see a light 
> >     blue hue in your bucket.  It is true DEEP bodies of water appear blue 
> >     because the other colors are more readily absorbed, but you would only 
> >     see this phenomenon in water that is several FEET deep, not inches.  
> >     Red light is absorbed first and can penetrate as deep as 20 feet.  
> >     Blue light is absorbed last, and can penetrate over 1,000 feet.  
    
> >     This information is available in any basic oceanography or limnology 
> >     text.

You don't know what you are talking about.  Pure water in a white 5 gallon 
bucket has a discerably blue hue to it.  Period, end of story.

If you have not seen that blue hue, then one of three things is true:

1.  You don't have pure water.

2.  You are colorblind.

3.  Your light source is almost entirely devoid of blue content.

As far as my needing to read a basic oceanography or limnology text, I 
already have, then I read the advanced ones.
 
> Be that as it may, there IS a light blue hue in my 5-gallon poly bucket when
> I draw it full of tap water and view it in the presence of sunlight.  I just
> looked at the same bucket of water, which has been treated for chloramine
> and aerated for over 24 hours; it had no blue hue, but was viewed under
> incandescent light.  I have moderately hard tap (<>140ppm) with whatever
> standard component of fluoride might be in there, as is typical for Clifton,
> NJ.  

Now here we have someone with a pair of functional eyes attached to a 
functional brain.  In some areas of the country, the tap water is 
sufficiently free of humic acids that when you draw a bucket of it, or 
fill a white tub with it, you can see the very light blue hue of pure 
water.  The last time I saw that with tap water, it was in a hotel in DC.

> Now, is the hue gone because of mineral loss?  Fluoride?
> Chlorine/chloramine?  The different lighting?  

It is possible that the lighting has something to do with it.  More than 
likely, though, there is enough low-quality organic material in the 
dechloraminator to put a fraction of an APHA color unit in the water in 
the bucket, which is all it takes to kill the blue color.

Craig Bingman

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