Project Acidity

[Fish are AWE]

Hello im doing a project on acidity of water in the oceans and i waas gonna do a test where i got 2 containers of water. One will be acidic and other alkaline. If i drop in fish food will the acid water make it detoriate quicker? I tthink thats what will hapen, but how do i make the water acidic btw?

 

[Fish are AWE]

PLZ I NEED QUICK REPLY. Sry if this is the wrong section

 

[Bignose]

well

1) if you are in fact doing a science project, you should form a hypothesis (acidic water will make fish food dissolve faster) and then test it. One of us just telling you if it does or doesn't defeats the purpose of the experiment, doesn't it? When you set up the experiment, don't forget to set up a control with plain water, too. Also, you probably want to find RO or distilled water before adding an acid or a base so that you start with no other contaminants in the water.

2) lots of things are acidic, but what is probably safest is citric acid, that you can get from any citric fruit juice. I'd suggest lemon.

 

[Fish are AWE]

Thanks for the reply. I have dozens of lemons at home so that is pretty good. I guess that baking soda (bi-carbonite of soda) can be used as a alkaline buffer in the water. But I have learnt that some people can have a reaction to it. Is there any other things that I could use as substitute?

 

[Bignose]

well, it your project so I think you should do this kind of leg work. Between Google and most any good introduction to chemistry text you should be able to find at any library, I think you can find what household chemicals are both acidic or basic.