Software to help bring water composition to the desired level.

Ok, I'll cut to the chase. I'm a programmer.

I enjoyed getting away from my job as a programmer
and work with my fish for relaxation.

my 2cents? You'll be better off working it out without
the anal intensity of thinking a computer program will
make it easy. It won't, you can.

Bob

I would have agreed 2 years ago Bob. Now I have close to 15 tanks and a pond
used for growing out cichlids. I have over 400 cichlids, of which atleast 70
or so are adults, most of which breed. Aside from my display tank, all the
others are specifically for breeding different types of cichlids, from the 3
rift lakes. I also have a discus tank... I do it for fun, as it is a hobby,
but it gets difficult to monitor all those tanks w/o some sort of
software...
"Bob K." wrote in message
...
Ok, I'll cut to the chase. I'm a programmer.

I enjoyed getting away from my job as a programmer
and work with my fish for relaxation.

my 2cents? You'll be better off working it out without
the anal intensity of thinking a computer program will
make it easy. It won't, you can.

Bob

I did exactly as you describe. I live in the Puget Sound area where the water is very soft.
I work in a lab, so I have access to common salts such as those used to reconstitute rfit lake
water. At home, I am too lazy to mix up special water, so I keep central american cichlids
that are fairly indifferent to water hardness or lack there of.

At work, I keep a pair of N. brichardi in a 15 gallon tank. I add four salts to Tanganyikafy
the water: MgCl2-6H2O, NaHCO3, KHCO3, & CaSO4-2H2O. Two of those are fairly common, baking
soda and gypsom.

To figure out how much I needed, I looked up the composition of Tanganyika water on the web.

I then used Excel to make a spreadsheet calculating how the concentration of the component
ions of a salt in increased in solution for a given amount of solid added to a given
volume of water. For me, I decided to do 5 gallon water changes, so I calculated for this
amount of water.

You'll need to know some basic chemistry, but otherwise it is fairly simple.

For baking soda (NaHCO3) the formula weight is 84.01
The atomic weight of Na is 22.99 so baking soda is 22.99 / 84.01 or 27.37% Na.
It follows that the balance is 72.63% bicarbonate.
So for every 100 grams of NaHCO3 you add to a liter of water, you end up with
roughly 27 mg/mL Na+ and 73 mg/mL HCO3-.
Note that g/L is the same as mg/mL--which is the same as ppm.
For salts with water (hydrates like gypsom: CaSO4-2H2O), you have to count the water in the
formula weight, but the idea is the same.

For more info on how much I use and what Tanganyika water is like check out:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=da...ika+water+salt
&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search

Other Google searches may help in finding sources for salts to use. Obviously baking soda is
easy to find. Gypsom can be bought at any home brew supplier.

Good luck.

Jeff Dantzler

Which platform will you build on? If not MS, I can help on that end.


"Picasso" wrote in message
om...
I'm setting up a breeding system for Tanganyikans and I've been
looking seriously at water composition posts to figure out exactly
what I need to do to make my water as close to the lake as
possible/feasible. I have come up with a list of chemicals to add to
get the standard parameters right. The issue arises when trying to
either figure out the exact amount to add (without just trial and
error), or adding additional trace elements. I'd rather not go through
the expense of buying premade mixtures, since I'll be setting up over
500 gallons worth of tanks and doing automated 10-20% water changes
weekly. I know that's not huge, but every little expense adds up.

Ok, I'll cut to the chase. I'm a programmer. I'd like to create
software that will let the user put in their current water quality
parameters (calcium, chloride, iron, potassium, etc.), put in what
their desired parameters are, and the software will calculate what
needs to be added to each liter/gallon of water to reach those levels,
or closely approximate them. It may not be exactly on, but it will
give a good idea of a starting place. Even if I only tackle some of
the basic parameters, it would make things easier for all aquarists.

What I need is some input from the community on whether this is a
good/bad idea, and someone with some chemistry know-how that can work
with me on getting things right. I'll do the rest. I'll even make it
web-accessible, so anyone and everyone can use it.

Thanks,
Picasso