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Sv: Aquatic Plants Digest V3 #759



Ole wrote to me privately about
+AD4-aquarists using ion replacement (DI?) water and then treating it with
+AD4-acid to remove the carbonates.

I+ALQ-m not sure that+ALQ-s what I wrote, but maybe I forgot ?

Wouldn't it be just as effective to
+AD4-merely treat the water with acid to remove the carbonates and leave the
+AD4-Ca +ACY- Mg in solution? (or as precipitate)

I did not advocate that, sorry. There are 2 problems with that way ( here not considering the relationship between
mono- and divalent kations)

1)  While H+- from the acid +ACI-takes+ACI- the bi- and carbonates, you add the anion (Cl-, SO4-2 or NO3-, depending on whitch strong acid you choose
2) Conductivity rises (yes) and maybe you don+ALQ-t want that

I believe he meant water that has been run through an ion exchange
column.  A water softener is an example of a cation-exchange column,
where Ca and Mg are exchanged for Na, or K.  
Anion-exchange columns also
exist.

And are of paramount importance when you need soft water from you hard tap water.

Sure, you could treat water with a strong acid to remove the carbonates.
However, you would have to drop the pH at or below 6.35 (pK1) to convert
at least half of the carbonates to CO2.

pH+AD0-7, KH+AD0- 1 equals 4 mg/L CO2. A more common CO2 is 16 mg/L. That give a pH of 6,4 ( From Dr. G. Ritter,
TetraInformation 4/1980, Scandinavian issue (TI+ALQ-N) 

  Then, if you wanted a higher
pH, you would have to titrate the water back up, using a base.  Not me.

Easy job if you have water like mine ( kh+AH4-16 and th+AH4-22): mix it in and aerate


And then I have to excuse everybody  for the strange character set in my mails. Disky mentioned it some weeks ago, but
being a Dane, I know Danes. Much Like Americans :-) So I thought it was his old machine......
But yesterday I got 3 mess. concerning it. I don+ALQ-t know how to solve the problem. Been In W95/help,MIE(4.01)/help
and OE/help and found no help (+ACE-). Any appreciated.

Ole