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Re: Seachem Flourish and KH question
on 01:48 AM 9/8/99 , Aquatic Plants Digest wrote:
>Most "tap water purifiers" capapble of removing phosphate will not remove
>sodium chloride (NaCl), indeed they tend to rais the levels of Na, and
>usually also Cl.
I believe he was talking about *the* Tap Water Purifier, a product from
Aquarium Pharmaceuticals. If I'm not mistaken, it's a DI resin thing and
not an ion-exchange system, and thus doesn't add NaCl. Its output should
basically be the equivalent of distilled water with zero KH and GH.
>Your water is in all likelyhood already salty enough, or even too
salty. Get
>a copy of the water quality report from the local water authority. See what
>you have.
This is a good idea, as is paying close attention to what any "purifier"
does before you use it.
>Because most water purifiers (and I am out on a limb making this
>generalization) replace CaCO3, MgCO3, and a host of less common compounds of
>phosphate and the like with salt. Yea, NaCl.
See above.
>CO2 injection causes the formation of carbonic acid (H2CO3). Because
>alkalinity is primarily a measure of CO3, the CO2 injection will stimulate a
>lowering of pH no matter what the kH is. The pH will still go down.
I'm sure this is true in theory, but doesn't a higher KH make the pH change
due to CO2 smaller? I'm bubbling quite a bit of CO2 into my 29G tank. My
tap water is 40% well water and has 7 dKH. I am unable to detect any change
in pH at all when turning on the CO2, turning it off, after a day's usage,
after turning on an airstone, ad infinitum.
I am, fortunately, able to detect a dramatic increase in plant growth, so
apparently the pH change isn't everything.
> You ran
>the water through a purifier, and whether it was your intent or not, the
>majority of what the purifier did was to take out CaCO3. Now you want to
>increase the level of CaCO3. Stop using the purifier. It will save you
>money, and effort. Confirm with your water utility or your own tests what
>phosphate levels are.
Here I agree. The mere presence of phosphates shouldn't force you to go to
such extremes.
>You've already increased the salinity by running it through a purifier. The
>amount of salinity you will boost it by (130ppm) is pretty high, on top of
>that. This is probably not very good for plants at all.
See above.
(On a related topic, Neil Frank writes, later in the digest...)
>some trace elements or may need more light to generate enough O2 or...). If
>you have visible algae, then your tank is probably not low in N. I
>discovered a long time ago (pre-PMDD) that I had to add nitrates when the
>plant groth slowed. When a tank is limited, there will be other signs --
>like languishing duckweed. Duckweed is a good indicator plant and is
>cheaper than a test kit.
My tank, FWIW, was growing huge colonies of algae while being utterly
N-limited, no detectable amounts on any test kit. The alga were apparently
happy with my tap water's ample phosphates. Adding a daily regimen of KNO3
has reduced algae to manageable levels. I have some rather dramatic
before-and-after pictures on my in-progress Web page:
http://www.xmission.com/~mgm/aquaria/pictures.html
My duckweed did disappear completely, so I'm sure you're right about that.
--
michael moncur mgm at starlingtech_com http://www.starlingtech.com/
"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going."
-- Professor Irwin Corey