What causes bad water?
- Thread starter patriot54
- Start date
kube
Member
PH is how acidic the water is for lack of better terms, not sure what you mean by bad water, are you referring to tap water? TDS is how that is measured my tap water is 400+ TDS the water that comes out of my RODI system is 0 TDS, also it contains chlorines and all the other stuff that you municipal water supply company added to it, i'm no expert on the subject though
king_neptune
Active Member
acid level in water is called PH.
bad water is caused by many factors. primarily bacteria in fish waste. but that's only the beginning. lots of factors make water bad. that's something that will take hours and hours of reading just to get a small grasp on. the stikky at the top of the forum is a good place to start
bad water is caused by many factors. primarily bacteria in fish waste. but that's only the beginning. lots of factors make water bad. that's something that will take hours and hours of reading just to get a small grasp on. the stikky at the top of the forum is a good place to start
socal57che
Active Member
Originally Posted by Patriot54
http:///forum/post/2883022
What would cause bad water?
pollution from waste and decaying food, among other things.
For a nice article on PH google the phrase "chemistry and the aquarium by randy holmes-farley"
"What is pH?
The concept of pH in a seawater application has a variety of different definitions. In the system used by most aquarists (the NBS system, with NBS standing for the old National Bureau of Standards), the pH is defined in equation 1
1. where aH is the “activity” of hydrogen ions in the solution. Activity is the way that chemists measure “free” concentrations. So pH is simply a measure of the hydrogen ions (H+; aka protons) in solution. Hydrogen ions in seawater are partly free (well, not really free but attached only to water molecules in complexes such as H3O+) and partly complexed to other ions. This effect is why chemists use activity instead of concentration. In particular, H+ ions in normal seawater are present as free H+(about 73% of the total), as HSO4-(about 25% of the total), and as HF (a small fraction). These activity issues also impact calibration buffers, and that is part of the reason that there are different pH scales and calibration buffers for use in seawater.
In order to understand most pH problems in marine aquaria, however, these issues can be ignored, and pH can be simply be thought of as relating directly to the concentration of H+:
2. where is simply a constant (the activity coefficient) that we can ignore for this purpose ( = 1 in pure fresh water and ~0.72 in seawater). In a sense, all that most aquarists need to know is that pH is a measure of the hydrogen ions in solution, and that the scale is logarithmic. That is, at pH 6 there is 10 times as much H+as at pH 7, and that at pH 6 there is 100 times as much H+ as at pH 8. Consequently, a small change in pH can mean a big change in the concentration of H+ in the water."
http:///forum/post/2883022
What would cause bad water?
pollution from waste and decaying food, among other things.
For a nice article on PH google the phrase "chemistry and the aquarium by randy holmes-farley"
"What is pH?
The concept of pH in a seawater application has a variety of different definitions. In the system used by most aquarists (the NBS system, with NBS standing for the old National Bureau of Standards), the pH is defined in equation 1
1. where aH is the “activity” of hydrogen ions in the solution. Activity is the way that chemists measure “free” concentrations. So pH is simply a measure of the hydrogen ions (H+; aka protons) in solution. Hydrogen ions in seawater are partly free (well, not really free but attached only to water molecules in complexes such as H3O+) and partly complexed to other ions. This effect is why chemists use activity instead of concentration. In particular, H+ ions in normal seawater are present as free H+(about 73% of the total), as HSO4-(about 25% of the total), and as HF (a small fraction). These activity issues also impact calibration buffers, and that is part of the reason that there are different pH scales and calibration buffers for use in seawater.
In order to understand most pH problems in marine aquaria, however, these issues can be ignored, and pH can be simply be thought of as relating directly to the concentration of H+:
2. where is simply a constant (the activity coefficient) that we can ignore for this purpose ( = 1 in pure fresh water and ~0.72 in seawater). In a sense, all that most aquarists need to know is that pH is a measure of the hydrogen ions in solution, and that the scale is logarithmic. That is, at pH 6 there is 10 times as much H+as at pH 7, and that at pH 6 there is 100 times as much H+ as at pH 8. Consequently, a small change in pH can mean a big change in the concentration of H+ in the water."
t316
Active Member
Originally Posted by Patriot54
http:///forum/post/2883034
What I mean by "bad water" is what causes the water to change in a small tank? I always hear that the cemistry can change really fast in small tanks, but what exactly causes it to change?
food left over from excess feeding, fish poop, dead livestock or corals eroding, just to name a few. The smaller the tank, the less room for error, or rather the more you have to monitor the quality of your water. The bigger the tank, the more water volume there is to dilute these things.
http:///forum/post/2883034
What I mean by "bad water" is what causes the water to change in a small tank? I always hear that the cemistry can change really fast in small tanks, but what exactly causes it to change?
food left over from excess feeding, fish poop, dead livestock or corals eroding, just to name a few. The smaller the tank, the less room for error, or rather the more you have to monitor the quality of your water. The bigger the tank, the more water volume there is to dilute these things.
camfish
Active Member
Dead bacteria and microorganisms, fish wastes, and all sorts of things give lead to dissolved organic waste and ammonia to leach into the water. Carbon, Skimmers, and water changes take out the dissolved organic waste and bacterium convert the ammonia (nitrogen cycle). pH is potential hydrogen and is a measure of how basic or acidic water is. Ideally saltwater should be basic at 8.0-8.4. Calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium are the most influential factors for pH. If your pH isn't in range, then chances are that one of these factors are out of whack too. CO2 and oxygen levels also have a role.
patriot54
Member
Originally Posted by T316
http:///forum/post/2883035
food left over from excess feeding, fish poop, dead livestock or corals eroding, just to name a few. The smaller the tank, the less room for error, or rather the more you have to monitor the quality of your water. The bigger the tank, the more water volume there is to dilute these things.
Thanks. So if you can get rid of those factors, then you are golden?
http:///forum/post/2883035
food left over from excess feeding, fish poop, dead livestock or corals eroding, just to name a few. The smaller the tank, the less room for error, or rather the more you have to monitor the quality of your water. The bigger the tank, the more water volume there is to dilute these things.
Thanks. So if you can get rid of those factors, then you are golden?
t316
Active Member
Well it's hard to totally get rid of all of those factors, as it's the nature of keeping a tank. But yes, you can take steps to keep them in check, such as only feeding what the fish will eat within a few minutes, thus not allowing much if/any to float down to the bottom to erode. Fish poop, well, if you are going to have fish, they poop
, so that's what your clean up crew is for (snails, crabs, etc.). They will help break this stuff down which will expidite it being transported out of the tank thru say, skimmer or water changes. And the last item I mentioned (dead livestock or coral decaying), well this is a no brainer, but remove it as soon as you discover it. This can cause your ammonia levels to rise rapidly.
As far as raising/lowering PH, there are additives, but the generic answer to correcting most bad levels, is to do more frequent water changes. If you are using good, quality RO water, this alone will help bring levels back in check.
As far as raising/lowering PH, there are additives, but the generic answer to correcting most bad levels, is to do more frequent water changes. If you are using good, quality RO water, this alone will help bring levels back in check.
patriot54
Member
Originally Posted by T316
http:///forum/post/2883067
Well it's hard to totally get rid of all of those factors, as it's the nature of keeping a tank. But yes, you can take steps to keep them in check, such as only feeding what the fish will eat within a few minutes, thus not allowing much if/any to float down to the bottom to erode. Fish poop, well, if you are going to have fish, they poop
, so that's what your clean up crew is for (snails, crabs, etc.). They will help break this stuff down which will expidite it being transported out of the tank thru say, skimmer or water changes. And the last item I mentioned (dead livestock or coral decaying), well this is a no brainer, but remove it as soon as you discover it. This can cause your ammonia levels to rise rapidly.
As far as raising/lowering PH, there are additives, but the generic answer to correcting most bad levels, is to do more frequent water changes. If you are using good, quality RO water, this alone will help bring levels back in check.
Thanks, what is a good cuc at geting rid of fish poop?
http:///forum/post/2883067
Well it's hard to totally get rid of all of those factors, as it's the nature of keeping a tank. But yes, you can take steps to keep them in check, such as only feeding what the fish will eat within a few minutes, thus not allowing much if/any to float down to the bottom to erode. Fish poop, well, if you are going to have fish, they poop
As far as raising/lowering PH, there are additives, but the generic answer to correcting most bad levels, is to do more frequent water changes. If you are using good, quality RO water, this alone will help bring levels back in check.
Thanks, what is a good cuc at geting rid of fish poop?
aztec reef
Active Member
A good sorted diverse team. And good husbandry of bio-mechanics..