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Re: degrees of hardness is useless

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Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 12:28:52 -0600 (MDT)
From: George Booth <booth at lvld_hp.com>
To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: Re: degrees of hardness is useless

> Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 01:34:31 -0700
> From: Steve Pushak <teban at powersonic_bc.ca>
> 
> IMHO all these hardness measures are just plain confusing and nearly
> useless.
> 
>Traditionally folks used the hardness kits to estimate water suitability
>for fish and later the same measurements were applied to aquatic plant
>husbandry. These are archaic measurements. 

IMHO, seeing the TAG Technical Advisor make this statement is a little 
discomforting.  I realize that you personally find test kits abhorrent and you 
would never use one but to make a blanket statement that suggests they are 
useless to just too bizarre.  Aren't you the one always suggesting that everyone 
should do experiments?  Experimental data would be next to useless if the 
experimenter did not know the conditions of the experiemntal environment.  

And ... "archaic"?  Maybe you could be a bit more specific?

> What you REALLY want to know
> is the concentration of calcium, magnesium and potassium in your water.

And exactly WHY would a "general hardness" test kit NOT tell you the 
concentration of ca and mg in the water?  

> You can get those figures from your water utility usually 

Sure, if you want to work with a yearly average or a water district average and 
don't really care what you put in YOUR fish tank. 

> or you can
> dose your water change water with a specific amount of a more
> concentrated solution. 

Yes, just add "100 ppm" and then you will know you have at least 100 ppm but you 
won't know what's really there. It may be 110 ppm or 200 ppm or maybe 600 ppm.

> Sure you can ESTIMATE the amount of minerals in
> your water but you will not know how much of each mineral is present.

And exactly WHY would a quality "general hardness" test kit like LaMotte NOT 
tell you the concentration of both ca and mg in the water?  

> Potassium in particular is NOT measured at all.

Why do you include K in a discussion of hardness?  Are you confused as to what 
hardness means? 

George "NOT a Member of AGA since 1998"

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