Smell of nitrites

"Mean_Chlorine" wrote in message
...
Thusly "NetMax" Spake Unto All:

Does anyone know the characteristics of the source of this smell? Does
it
take long to leave the water, and is the water left harmless after?

Hydrogen sulphide is weakly toxic, and smells like, well, like
someone's farted. It's said to smell like rotten eggs, but to me it
smells like fart. Anyway, it's a completely different smell than the
sharp, putrid, smell of ammonia & mercaptans you get in aquaria which
are cycling, and there's no risk of confusing those two smells.

However are these sulphide gases the same
as what cause the sulphur smell in well water?

Probably, yes. Fortunately you can smell hydrogen sulphide at levels
much lower than they're lethal to fish, and water changes helps.

This link might be of interest to you:
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex1160?opendocument

Incidentally, it seems crustaceans are far more sensitive to hydrogen
sulphide than fish.


Yes, thanks, very helpful. I do periodically shock the well (but
it's -18C right now and the well cap is under much ice & snow ;~).
Discounting their hydrogen peroxide, potassium permanganate, chlorine,
ozone and bleach treatments, they talk about aeration, and make mention
of an iron reducing valve having variable effectiveness (improves as the
water is more acidic). I'm a little more comfortable knowing aeration
will have a significant effect, so I'll stick with a routine of aging the
water for a week, and see how it goes.

OT, regarding Ja b riol in the ' AråchñÕe¤ thread ', these persons are
fully capable, willing and planning to bring significant havoc to rafm.
Rec.ponds is a wreck and alt.aquaria is currently being overwhelmed. If
nothing changes, we will be their next target, and our options are
limited. I don't know about you, but I'm rather fond of rafm and have
enjoyed many interesting discussions here. When I can repeat
conversations to friends, from the newsgroup, then I know the group is
part of my life (social, entertainment and academic too).

If they choose to snow us under 100s of robo-generated posts, they will
regardless. If they want to intimidate me, then they now have a very big
target with over 10,000 mostly boring posts from which to gather
information from (they'll know more about my tanks than I'll remember
;~). fwiw, I'll take your advice if the exchange is fruitless, but
regardless of the outcome, it was worth asking them to stop... the cause
justifies the effort, eh?

Thanks again for the link.
cheers
--
www.NetMax.tk

Thusly "NetMax" Spake Unto All:

Discounting their hydrogen peroxide, potassium permanganate, chlorine,
ozone and bleach treatments, they talk about aeration, and make mention
of an iron reducing valve having variable effectiveness (improves as the
water is more acidic).

Yeah, degassing is more effective at lower pH's. However hydrogen
peroxide could help with the smell. I presume you know about devices
like this?:
http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com.../oxydator.html

;~). fwiw, I'll take your advice if the exchange is fruitless, but
regardless of the outcome, it was worth asking them to stop... the cause
justifies the effort, eh?

Just be careful. I know from personal experience that guys like these
can cause real-world effects.

"Mean_Chlorine" wrote in message
...
Thusly "NetMax" Spake Unto All:

Discounting their hydrogen peroxide, potassium permanganate, chlorine,
ozone and bleach treatments, they talk about aeration, and make mention
of an iron reducing valve having variable effectiveness (improves as
the
water is more acidic).

Yeah, degassing is more effective at lower pH's. However hydrogen
peroxide could help with the smell. I presume you know about devices
like this?:
http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com.../oxydator.html

No I wasn't. Interesting device. The odour is not too strong. I don't
notice it in the shower, only when I'm using raw well water, and even
then it's not strong, just enough to cause some concern for the fish when
I get up to 20% water changes.

;~). fwiw, I'll take your advice if the exchange is fruitless, but
regardless of the outcome, it was worth asking them to stop... the
cause
justifies the effort, eh?

Just be careful. I know from personal experience that guys like these
can cause real-world effects.

If you can, email me off line with some real-world effects that I might
want to be aware of, but from the cursing I see going back and forth, my
questions to them seemed pretty tame. Thanks for the concern (to
everyone).
--
www.NetMax.tk

Thusly "NetMax" Spake Unto All:

peroxide could help with the smell. I presume you know about devices
like this?:
http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com.../oxydator.html

No I wasn't. Interesting device. The odour is not too strong. I don't
notice it in the shower, only when I'm using raw well water, and even
then it's not strong, just enough to cause some concern for the fish when
I get up to 20% water changes.

The human nose can detect hydrogen sulphide at extremely low levels;
the material safety factsheet suggests down to ppb concentrations,
whereas toxicity to fish is cited in the ppm range. Your fish are
probably quite safe.

As for oxydator/oxidator, I've tried a home-made variant (a 0.5L pet
bottle with a pinhole in the cork, filled with 3% peroxide and turned
upside down in the aquarium; the oxygen gas produced by the
decomposition of the peroxide pressed out about 10ml of peroxide per
day though the pinhole), and it DOES increase the ORP, does oxidize
organic compounds in the water, and does seem to make algae miserable,
but my home-made contraption released too much peroxide which made the
fishes start scratching themselves, and killed off some plants. I'm
still quite interested in getting hold of one of the commercial
devices, though.

WRT hydrogen sulphide, peroxide should work like ozone, and reduce it
to non-toxic & odorless sulphate (AFAIK).

If you can, email me

Details are in the mail.

On Sat, 18 Feb 2006 18:18:37 -0500, NetMax wrote:
;~). fwiw, I'll take your advice if the exchange is fruitless, but
regardless of the outcome, it was worth asking them to stop... the cause
justifies the effort, eh?

I kind of agree, the sensitive being in me wants to agree, but
the geek in me says "just killfile, and hard".

We don't have to view the ******** they spout.

--
Flash Wilson - Web Design & Mastery - 0870 401 4061 / 07939 579090
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Work: www.wdam.co.uk Personal: www.gorge.org

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 00:34:32 +0000 (UTC), (Flash
Wilson) wrote:

On Sat, 18 Feb 2006 18:18:37 -0500, NetMax wrote:
;~). fwiw, I'll take your advice if the exchange is fruitless, but
regardless of the outcome, it was worth asking them to stop... the cause
justifies the effort, eh?

I kind of agree, the sensitive being in me wants to agree, but
the geek in me says "just killfile, and hard".

We don't have to view the ******** they spout.

The patient in me worries that the impatient in me is setting
killfiles on people who didn't really write the messages I'm killing -
I'm having trouble figuring out who's on first and who's stealing
who's identity. And if I'm not careful, everyone is going to end up in
my killfiles, which would probably please the blue meanies very much.
So I'll begin again by unkilling all of my current kills.




-- Mr Gardener

OT, regarding Ja b riol in the ' AråchñÕe¤ thread ', these persons are
fully capable, willing and planning to bring significant havoc to rafm.
Rec.ponds is a wreck and alt.aquaria is currently being overwhelmed. If
nothing changes, we will be their next target, and our options are
limited. I don't know about you, but I'm rather fond of rafm and have
enjoyed many interesting discussions here. When I can repeat
conversations to friends, from the newsgroup, then I know the group is
part of my life (social, entertainment and academic too).

If they choose to snow us under 100s of robo-generated posts, they will
regardless. If they want to intimidate me, then they now have a very big
target with over 10,000 mostly boring posts from which to gather
information from (they'll know more about my tanks than I'll remember
;~). fwiw, I'll take your advice if the exchange is fruitless, but
regardless of the outcome, it was worth asking them to stop... the cause
justifies the effort, eh?

One thing these trolls sometimes do is post under a regular poster's
name and email address. We've already seen it happen a couple of times
If someone suddenly writes something out of character, check whether
it's from their regular news server (you can find that in the header)
or ask before you assume they've "gone off the deep end."

Good luck with that water, NetMax.

On 18 Feb 2006 16:56:06 -0800, "Altum" wrote:

OT, regarding Ja b riol in the ' AråchñÕe¤ thread ', these persons are
fully capable, willing and planning to bring significant havoc to rafm.
Rec.ponds is a wreck and alt.aquaria is currently being overwhelmed. If
nothing changes, we will be their next target, and our options are
limited. I don't know about you, but I'm rather fond of rafm and have
enjoyed many interesting discussions here. When I can repeat
conversations to friends, from the newsgroup, then I know the group is
part of my life (social, entertainment and academic too).

If they choose to snow us under 100s of robo-generated posts, they will
regardless. If they want to intimidate me, then they now have a very big
target with over 10,000 mostly boring posts from which to gather
information from (they'll know more about my tanks than I'll remember
;~). fwiw, I'll take your advice if the exchange is fruitless, but
regardless of the outcome, it was worth asking them to stop... the cause
justifies the effort, eh?

One thing these trolls sometimes do is post under a regular poster's
name and email address. We've already seen it happen a couple of times
If someone suddenly writes something out of character, check whether
it's from their regular news server (you can find that in the header)
or ask before you assume they've "gone off the deep end."

Good luck with that water, NetMax.

Ask whom?

-- Mr Gardener