Natural Seawater BRIEF Chemical Analysis

[David Gosselin]

FYI - I went out to Marblehead Neck (lots of granite and crystal clear water) at high tide (4:44pm, August 23, 2008) to collect some NSW for a trial run. Before I dumped it in my tank, I ran some quick tests on it. I did a forum search and it doesn't seem as if anyone has posted it here before. So, for what it's worth, here's the results:

Salinity: 1.020
PO4: 0.25 mg/l
NO3: 0 mg/l
pH: 8.2
Alkalinity: 9 dKH
Calcium: 300 mg/l

I bumped up the calcium and salinity before adding it to the tank.

The calcium makes sense (LOTS of granite!!) But salinity and phosphate? High levels of run-off perhaps?

Anyone have results from other locations within a 20 minute drive of downtown Boston? Like Nahant?

 

[delta]

Good place to start is "useful threads"

If you are going to use NSW here are the links in "useful threads" stickied at the top of reef talk
http://www.bostonreefers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6090

 

[MarkO]

I've never seen NSW that low in salinity. Were you at the mouth of a river?

 

[Behrmon]

I've never seen NSW that low in salinity. Were you at the mouth of a river?

I was thinking the same, I live on a river thats runs into a brackish cove and is usually 1.019 on an outgoing tide.