Inirida river Delphax habitat

[coryhead]

Did some web searching and found no information on the Inirida river system habitat! Anyone have descriptions/pictures and water quality(White/Black water)of this river in South America?
Interested in water paramaters as well as substrate and plant life.
Is the plant life terrestrial or submereged?
Is the water fast moving or slow?
Is the substrate mixed or just sandy?
Are the banks steep or gradual?
Are the banks tree or vegitated?
Is the river deep channel or slopped?

Anything else you can think of or remember

[Silurus]

http://www.icsu-scope.org/downloadpubs/ ... ter05.html

Search for "Inirida" within the page. There's a lot of text here.

[coryhead]

Silurus

Thank you for the doc. I was pleased to find thta the river is practically blackwater Ph of 5.5 and the color of coffee

Thanks

[Shane]

I thought I would take the liberty of putting the below together from the above link provided by HH. I think it is a very useful reference. It really shows the difference between the whitewater rivers coming from the Andes and those originating in the llanos or Guayana Shield.
For comparison, distilled water is usually .5 to 2 MicroSiemens (uS/cm)

Orinoco Tributaries:

Left Bank tributaries

River pH Conduct (µS/cm)

Guaviare (above Inirida) 6.7 21.5
Guaviare (below Inirida) 6.35 15.7
Inirida 5.05 5.4
Vichada 5.40 3.3
Meta 6.94 48.0
Cinaruco 5.46 5.9
Capanaparo 6.26 15.0
Arauca 6.63 14.7
Apure 7.65 190.0

Right Bank

Ocampo 6.35 16.0
Padamo 6.00 8.0
Ventuari (SB) 5.95 8.0
Ventuari (C) 6.40 12.0
Atabapo 4.35 12.4
Manapiare 6.00 8.0
Parucito 6.36 16.0
Parguaza 5.71 7.4
Suapure 6.20 12.0
Aro 7.14 18.0
Cuchivero 6.81 14.4
Caura 6.50 9.7
Caroni 5.76 6.2

-Shane

[Shane]

Interested in water paramaters as well as substrate and plant life.
Is the plant life terrestrial or submereged?
Is the water fast moving or slow?
Is the substrate mixed or just sandy?
Are the banks steep or gradual?
Are the banks tree or vegitated?
Is the river deep channel or slopped?

I have not collected the Inirida specifically, but have collected different rivers in the same area.

1) No plant life to speak of as the water is so mineral difficient.
2) Water is slow moving.
3) Sunstrate is white sand. You would not find any stones, but the river often exposes the bedrock.
4) Banks are very gradual.
5) Banks free of vegetation for the most part as those that are close are killed by the acidic waters.
6) Not a particularly deep river.

To maintain the correct measurements (pH around 5 and conductivity around 5 uS/cm) would be tricky as it could crash very easily. I would run a full time pH meter on this type of set up.
-Shane

Found this photo on a Colombian website.

[coryhead]

Shane,

I wonder if using peat moss to bring the Ph down naturally would work in this instance? The water in the picture looks rather clear/blue and leads me to wonder how the Ph is so low? One normally associates low Ph with blackwater so I am interested in the mechanism that leads to low Ph in what appears to be white water.

[MatsP]

Unless you have very low "tds" (Total disolved solids), you probably need to run your water through a RO unit before you can get low pH on it.

Once you have low TDS, you could probably use peat to lower the pH. That would simulate the tannic acid that you get in the breakdown of rainforest-fallen-into-rivers.

--
Mats

[lcgarcia]

Hello Shane,
I would like to quote the source of these data, if possible. What is the link mentioned?

Also, Atabapo river is not a right-margin tributary of the Orinoco. It is a 210 km long tributary of Guaviare, on its right bank, < 0,5 km from the mouth of the Guaviare and ca. 22 km down-stream from the Inirida mouth; it is also blackwater river, as the Inirida. Atabapo headwaters are near the Guainía river (or Upper Rio Negro), for this reason it has tempted more than one engineer with the dream of another direct connection between the Orinoco and the Amazon basins, an alternative to the Casiquiare caño which is not fully navigable. But the dry season is quite severe and the Atabapo does not allow either navigation during these times.

ATABAPO - Río formado por los ríos Guacaví (colombiano), Atacaví y Temí (venezolanos). Sirve de límite entre el departamento del Guainía (Colombia) y Venezuela Desemboca en el río Guaviare. (Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi. 1996. Diccionario Geográfico de Colombia. CD version)

I thought I would take the liberty of putting the below together from the above link provided by HH. I think it is a very useful reference. It really shows the difference between the whitewater rivers coming from the Andes and those originating in the llanos or Guayana Shield.
For comparison, distilled water is usually .5 to 2 MicroSiemens (µS/cm)

Orinoco Tributaries:

Left Bank tributaries

River pH Conduct (µS/cm)

Guaviare (above Inirida) 6.7 21.5
Guaviare (below Inirida) 6.35 15.7
Inirida 5.05 5.4
Vichada 5.40 3.3
Meta 6.94 48.0
Cinaruco 5.46 5.9
Capanaparo 6.26 15.0
Arauca 6.63 14.7
Apure 7.65 190.0

Right Bank

Ocampo 6.35 16.0
Padamo 6.00 8.0
Ventuari (SB) 5.95 8.0
Ventuari (C) 6.40 12.0
Atabapo 4.35 12.4
Manapiare 6.00 8.0
Parucito 6.36 16.0
Parguaza 5.71 7.4
Suapure 6.20 12.0
Aro 7.14 18.0
Cuchivero 6.81 14.4
Caura 6.50 9.7
Caroni 5.76 6.2

-Shane