High calcium in lake water

condor13090 · #1 07/12/2004, 08:21 PM

I live near a deep spring fed lake in central New York. I wondered if it could be rich in calcium and if it could be used for make-up water or mixed with oceanic salt for reef aquarium use. When I tested the water it revealed a calcium level of 450 and a ph. of 7.8.
There is very little algae in this deep lake and it has a clear green-blue color when seen at a distance, probaly from the lime stone so common in this area. Thanks...George

Randy Holmes-Farley · #2 07/13/2004, 07:23 AM

It could be useful as top off water but it may also have undesirably high levels of other things, like copper. I wouldn't use it to make salt water mix as the calcium will be too high.

Where in NY?

condor13090 · #3 07/15/2004, 04:23 PM

It's called Green Lakes State park just east of Syracuse in central New York.

Randy Holmes-Farley · #4 07/15/2004, 05:28 PM

Cool. We have a vacation home on Lake Ontario just east of Rochester.

mmmmsushi · #5 07/16/2004, 09:25 AM

I wouldn't use any water from that area. That water is quite nasty. The top 10 ft of that water is probably somwhat safe to swim in by some scientists dove down below that level and started to experience some problems there. There is a VERY high level of toxic substance. In fact there was a similar lake in Africa a few years back. A high rainfall made the lake "turnover", releasing the sulfuric gasses into the atmosphere killing many people in the area.

On the other hand they're beautiful lakes, and quite intersting. I saw a tree that had fallen into the lake and the calcium in the water had started to collect on the tree making a very unusually shaped "rock".

That lake was formed by a glacier and is very deep. The reason the lower levels are of highly toxic is because of chemicals in the ground seeping into the lake. I would agree with Randy on this one and say it's probably got lots of bad stuff in there. Also to note the water in the syracuse area (lake onandoga, however it's spelled) is one of the most polluted lakes in the US.

I went to Colgate University which is about 30 minutes from those lakes and we studied them in a couple classes.

mmmmsushi · #6 07/16/2004, 09:55 AM

Here's a section from an article I found on-line and the site.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache....aspx?ID=37099

FYI the lakes in Green Lakes state park are Meromictic.

"Meromictic Lakes are ideal for paleolimnological (ancient history of lakes) studies because of lack of bioturbation (churning of sediment by bottom-dwelling organisms) in sediments and highly predictable deposition characteristics (Anderson, et al., 1985). Meromictic lakes are chemically interesting for the study of speciation of redox-sensitive elements across the chemocline (e.g., Viollier, et al., 1995) and biologically interesting because intense bacterial blooms can occur at the chemocline (Overmann, et al., 1996) and biologic zonation results from the stratification, including prey, such as freshwater shrimp, that use the chemocline as a defense against predation. Meromictic lakes are most notorious, however, for abrupt releases of dissolved carbon dioxide, methane, and other gasses. This abrupt release occurred recently in Lake Nyos in Africa, but in this case, the lake sits atop a volcanic vent (Kling, et al., 1994). In an attempt to survey all meromictic lakes in North America, the U.S. Geological Survey (Anderson, et al., 1985) was only able to identify about 160 lakes - and overlooked Ballston Lake."

condor13090 · #7 07/16/2004, 10:07 PM

A few years back I caught three nice Rainbow trout about 24 inches long on the shallow north end and there are some bass and sun fish but besides that theres not much life in this lake. I found the link very interesting, I've lived here all my life and never knew what this lake was all about.
I might take a water sample to the water dept. to find out whats actually in it. Thanks everybody....