Water is known as a universal solvent.
Any one here ever fish with soft craws? Some know them as crawdads, some as crayfish, some as crabs, some as all the preceeding. Before the soft craw is soft, he is hard. Now the way he gets soft is by systemically absorbing a good part of the calcium in his existing "shell" (ectoskeleton if you prefer the term) that he has out grown. Once the old "shell" is sufficiently softened, the craw can push out, or shed. This is when you want to gather them for bait. You take them home, put them in the fridge, and cover with a damp cloth or paper towels or damp Sphagnum moss.
Any one here ever buy an African violet, take it home water it and watch it shrivel up and die?
Any one here ever get water spots on their dishes?
Any one here ever have a water heater "lime up"?
Any one here ever buy a fish that was truly tropical rain forest in origin that "slimed up" and died?
Not too many people have missed out on aquarium keeping, so let's keep this one on a roll.
Any one ever buy an Amazon sword plant, bring it home, plant it and watch it turn all brown and spindly?
Any one ever have female fish fill with spawn and stay that way even with males in the tank?
Any one ever have females spawn out, males fertilize and eggs still not hatch?
Or perhaps eggs did hatch and fry survived but they were predominantely of one sex?
Any one ever wonder what all that gritty stuff was at the bottom of a pickle bucket?
All the above questions have a common denominator involved. Now I'm going to reverse the denominator.
Any one ever buy African cichlids of Rift Lake descent (Malawi, Victoria, Tanganyika) and put them in "soft" water to watch them grow lethargic, thin and die?
The common player in all the above is calcium carbonate, or in simplest terms, dissolved rock. Hard water. Remember the carbonate word, I'm coming back to it.
When the craw was taken from the water, he was removed from a source of calcium carbonate to restructure his "shell". The available calcium in his system will harden his shell to a degree and produce a "paper" craw, if he lives that long. So I don't appear sexist, the same would hold true of female craws.
African violet, remember that carbonate word. Amazon sword plant, you know the drill, carbonate word.
Spots on dishes, a visual, pure water evaporates and leaves what as a residue?
Limed up water heater, another annoying visual, indicating an abundance of calcium carbonate, if elements are being replaced frequently.
Tropical fish sliming up (if they lived long enough for you to see this happen), a condition known as alkaliosis. Caused by? You're going to get a big fat F if you don't get this one right.
The spawn filled fish that don't spawn is probably due to calcification of eggs near the vent. Eggs laid and attempted fertilization by the male with out a hatch is along similar lines as the craw that needed the calcium carbonate to harden his shell. The difference being, the shells hardened before the sperm could make union. Speaking of sperm, the same sex hatch phenomena for years has been associated with pH levels of the water. pH and hardness can ALMOST go hand in hand. We violate this part in our acid pickle practices. The gritty stuff in the bottom of the pickle bucket? We wouldn't have a calcium precipitate there, would we? Calcium precipitate!?! Where's that carbonate word? It's gone. Sorry.
The African cichlids died from a lack of calcium carbonate in the water. They had evolved over the eons in water not a whole lot unlike the water we have in a good part of this country. The sliming up that goes along with both acidiosis and alkaliosis is a quick fix attempt by the fish to regulate the loss or gain of fluids. In many cases, a fish may be able to adapt it's body in a three day period. In many cases, depending on species and origin, it may not.
Notice that for the greater part I used living examples for all of the above. I did that to illustrate as to how little it can take to make a big difference in end results, in those cases above, it is literally a life and death situation.
Water hardness is measured in German degrees hardness or in parts per million. Let me repeat that, PARTS PER MILLION. The creeks, lakes, rivers and ponds in this neck of the woods will consistently test 750 to 850 parts per million total hardness year around, with pHs of 7.8 to 8.2. Shallow wells will frequently show similar readings (60 feet or less). Deep wells in the aqua fir may well be quite higher, but yet another deep well may yield readings of almost half the hardness.
The readings I just described will bring on all the conditions that I had described above.
If you were to use litmus, or hydrion papers on a baking soda solution in distilled water, you will show a reading of 8+ on the pH scale. This solution is called a sodium bicarbonate solution. There's that carbonate word again. Acids aren't picky when it comes to reacting with a compound containing a carbonate. They will react with the calcium carbonate in hard water just as quickly (for all practical purposes to any one wanting to throw molecular weights into the quo) as the baking soda solution you buffer or neutralize with. The milder acids will be neutralized quicker than the "hotter" acids simply because the concentration of the acids is less requiring a lesser concentration of carbonates.
The plant examples above responded in a negative fashion because they needed slightly acidic conditions. Water your African violets with rain water or distilled water. Grow your Amazon swords in rain water. The hard water neutralized the acid conditions they needed.
The hint for the day to either the beginner thinking of tanning, but now half scared to do so, or to any one who suspicions water as a source of problems, buy distilled water for your acid pickle. That will eliminate the "tricky" variables that can occur with ground water sources. I have yet to talk to a taxidermist that was having tanning problems that knew what their water hardness was. Another simple fix. General and carbonate hardness kits can be purchased for a few bucks through a number of on-line companies or through pet shops. They are manufactured by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, use that for your search phrase on any major search engine and you will find a buying source.
If you are using well water and getting inconsistent results you now have the technology to monitor the rises and falls of hardness that is not uncommon with well water.
Of dead minnows and bacteria in well water. Assuming the minnows were not given a thermal shock from a temperature difference when placed into the water, I might point out that well water is typically pretty well devoid of dissolved oxygen. That's why aerators are put on faucets, some water will have a "flat" taste if not aerated. Anaerobic bacteria do not require oxygen. They're the ones that eat your poop in the septic tank. I'd worry.
Return to Tanning Category Menu
Glen,
What's your location? I haven't heard the term "soft craws" since I was a kid in southern Ohio (Dayton). Up here in Michigan everyone calls them "crabs!" Very interesting reading Glen, and I know enough to know you know your stuff(lol). Merry Christmas!
That was the short course in Limnology. Well written, Glen. Any one interested in learning more should find a book on Limnology, but you had better be up on your Chemistry.
The hardness of your water will be reported in grains per gallon, milligrams per liter (mg/l) or parts per million (ppm). One grain of hardness equals 17.1 mg/l or ppm of hardness.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) establishes standards for drinking water which fall into two categories -- Primary Standards and Secondary Standards.
Primary Standards are based on health considerations and Secondary Standards are based on taste, odor, color, corrosivity, foaming, and staining properties of water. There is no Primary or Secondary standard for water hardness. Water hardness is classified by the U.S. Department of Interior and the Water Quality Association as follows:
Classification mg/l or ppm grains/gal
Soft 0 - 17.1 0 - 1
Slightly hard 17.1 - 60 1 - 3.5
Moderately hard 60 - 120 3.5 - 7.0
Hard 120 - 180 7.0 - 10.5
Very Hard 180 & over 10.5 & over
gLEN THANK YOU FOR ENLIGHTING US .with the sacrmento volume 1 operators manuel.lol I;m going to agree with you also. Ph factors will vary as the aquifer levels rise which obviously you know why.
Agrees also that if people are scared to use there own well water Buy distilled.lol i;m giveing Glen his A-1 opperators license. have a good day.
This is one of those posts you might just read in "The Best of the Forums" in the next issue of BREAKTHOUGH Magazine.
this post deserves a high 5! excellent debates occuring due to water differences are clearly posted right here
thanks glen , keep up the good work
We live on the edge of the Edwards Plateau region in Central Texas. Our well water (we have a shallow well of about 39 feet)falls into the extreme hard category of over 180. Now I am consuming quite a bit of this water as that is all I drink (about a gallon a day). What,if you know, health risks are involved in drinking extreme hard water? If it affects the plants and fish you would expect it to effect the human body. That is one queston I like to have answered. Any studies done on human consumption of very hard water and it's effect on the human body?
In the chart Bill provided you will see that the Primary Standard does not recognize hardness as a health concern. Your question is still a good one, none the less, and you are not the first to question. Questions are wise, as long as conclusions are not jumped to prematurely, before all the data is gathered or examined.
If you were to start digging around looking for the end results of work previously done by others, in regards to the negative affect of water hardness on human health, you would probably turn up little or nothing. Inconsequential data is most generally deleted from the files. By the same token, you might well be surprised at the amount of positive results your research will turn up. Didn't Old Fart already tell you that you should get a book on Limnology? Once you start digging into this research project, you will find that calcium carbonate is a big player in life cycles,agricultural, manufacturing, and the building industries, but will trace back to it's water
"roots".
It was my intent in my original post to make in-house tanners aware of the carbonate factor in their water supply. No one seems to correlate an already present source of carbonate as a potential problem, and it isn't one coming out of the tap, it occurs when the carbonate compounds are reacted in an aqueous ACID solution OR in an aqueous solution with heat.
When you dissolve sal soda, sodium carbonate, and subject it to heat, you convert the sal soda to sodium hydroxide, caustic soda. I can not remember the exact temperature at which carbon dioxide and water are driven off allowing the sodium to bond with an oxygen and hydrogen (or does the sodium retain an oxygen from the carbonate?), but it is 130 odd degrees F., 140 degrees to be sure. That's why you don't need to boil skulls, only simmer.
The above description is a first step in producing aqua destillate. A more "purified" form of water can be produced by heating to break the carbon bonds, allowing the heavier precipitates to sink. This is in essence what you have already done with a water heater that is set above 140 degrees F. You can check the end results of what you get for carbonate hardness with the kit I described above.
I want to point out again that water is a universal solvent. Naturally occuring trace elements and minerals other than calcium carbonate will be found in any water supply. I think you will also find these other elements in abundance when you get into extreme hard water conditions. A couple of years ago I tested the well water of a taxidermist just north of me. He sits over a HUGE aqua fir and has a deep well. His well had the hardest readings I have ever personally taken. There are a lot of people tapped into this same aqua fir. We did some note comparison on the incidence of submandibular salivary gland stones in the people that we personally knew and it did not take us long to figure out that this had to be well above national averages. Food for thought. If this sounds like an area of suspect, place telephone calls to the dentists in your area to find out how many cases of salivary gland stones they treat per year.
This web site address will either help to ease your mind, or get you started on a course of action:
http://www.niddk.gov/health/urolog/pubs/stonadul/stonadul.htm
Doug, my location is less than fifty miles west of Dayton, just the other side of the border. You weren't insinuating that I was writing in a colloquial form were you, eh? Those soft craws are a versatile bait, they can catch shovelheads in Ohio and Flatheads in Indiana.