Dan Drake wrote:
On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 05:10:25 UTC, "Robert Flory"
wrote:


let me restate...most fresh freshwater fish seem to be more sensitive to
chlorine compounds that sulfate compounds.


Are they, enough so that it would make a difference in choosing acids?
Many treatments for sick fish involve adding sodium chloride to the water,
and I've never yet seen a toxicity warning attached to this advice. I
can't imagine adding so much HCl that it would raise the chloride level
above therapeutic levels.

I'd really like to know what the answer is here, having heard lots of
warnings about too much chloride as well as too much sodium.

The Chloride of salts (such as sodium chloride) in very small amounts is
not going to have a significant effect.
Releasing hydrochloric acid is almost identical to releasing chlorine
gas. There is a very big difference in activity levels of something
described with a suffix of -ide versus -ic.
There are some sharp chemists in these seminars who caught me forgetting
that principal a couple of years ago.

Small amounts of salt introduced into a fresh water setup primarily
effects the osmotic pressure of the cells--less work is expended pumping
excess water out of the fresh water fish's cells to keep them from
bursting when there is a trace of salt in the external water.
Identical amounts of compounds with the suffix -ide or -ine will kill
the creatures outright.