Acidity

[ddm18]

Hey,

The water in my tank is about neutral, and always has been, everyone is perfectly happy, however, I have a question:

At my parents house there is a small brook, that is completely sterile - there are no plants, fish or living things of any kind in it. I happened to have a pH test kit with me, so, just out of curiosity, I tested the water, it came out to around 8ish. Aha! I thought - the water is too alkaline for fish to live. And so my curiosity was quenched. BUT, being a curious chap, I then decided to test the tap water, again this came to about the same, 8ish. This confused me, because my sister keeps 2 goldfish in the same water, both of whom are perfectly healthy...

Thus, I can only assume that my initial assumption (that 8 is too alkaline for fish) must be incorrect? Yes? No? Does anyone have any other suggestions for why the brook is completely sterile?

 

[rvm]

The water in my tank has a Ph of around 8.2, so it's not that. Dunno why nothing lives in there though!!

 

[mrV]

At my parents house there is a small brook, that is completely sterile - there are no plants, fish or living things of any kind in it.

Sounds science fiction to me... Or some industrial plant is dumping their waste to that brook. At least there should be bacteria, worms etc...

 

[ddm18]

Nope nothing. Well, who knows about bacteria, but no visible living creatures - not even insects. The only thing I've ever seen on it was a duck, and that didn't stay long.

Also, it's almost certainly not pollution - at least not in the industrial sense, because it only starts about 2 miles away, and it's just open countryside between the spring and my parents house.

Speaking to a friend of my Dad's, who should know about these things, he suggested that it could be "loaded with minerals", since it originates in an old coal mine. Does anyone know what this means???

 

[totalbolshevik]

it means that the water is probably pretty hard, which I guess is what you already found out, but it seems like it would be more than 8.0 if it was "loaded with minerals"