{"id":895,"date":"2020-11-10T20:27:38","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T20:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cleverarium.coderobertllc.com\/CleverArium_iOS_Ad_Hoc_Builds\/?page_id=895"},"modified":"2023-05-31T17:30:45","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T17:30:45","slug":"basicwaterchem","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/cleverarium.coderobertllc.com\/CleverArium_iOS_Ad_Hoc_Builds\/basicwaterchem\/","title":{"rendered":"BasicWaterChem"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Water Chemistry<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Basics of Water Chemistry and Why<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0<\/p>

Source: https:\/\/users.cs.duke.edu\/~narten\/faq\/chemistry.html<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Water in nature contains dissolved salts, buffers, nutrients, etc. and fish and plants have evolved over the millennia to adapt to the water conditions in their native habitats.\u00a0 Moving them from their natural environments to significantly different environments can cause survival problems.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Note: If you are new to the aquarist hobby, try taking the easy approach of selecting fish whose needs match the qualities of their normal tap water. Once you become comfortable taking care of your \u201cstarter\u201d fish, you can move to being an advanced aquarist and you can add more varieties of fish and change the water characteristics to match the fish’s needs – just keep in mind that doing so can often be \u00a0more difficult than it first appears. Regardless of your level of expertise, you still need to know enough about water chemistry to make sure that the water in your aquarium has the right properties for the fish you are keeping.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Water has four measurable properties commonly used to characterize its chemistry \u2013 Acidity (pH), Buffering, General Hardness (GH) and Salinity.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take a look at each of them:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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pH<\/strong><\/span> refers to water being either an acid, base, or neither (neutral). A pH of 7 is said to be neutral, pH’s below 7 are “acidic” and pH’s above 7 are “basic” or “alkaline”. Like the Richter scale used to measure earthquakes, the pH scale is logarithmic. A pH of 5.5 is 10 times more acidic than water at a pH of 6.5. Thus, changing the pH by a small amount (suddenly) is more of a chemical change (and more stressful to fish!) than might first appear.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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To an aquarist, two aspects of pH are important:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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