Can I put calcium chloride/soda ash in a auto stirrer?

[Aquajan]

Hi,

Im looking to make the addatives for my tank cheaper as I use Triton other methods now and my Alk consumption is 2,9 per day so it is getting expensive..
So I was looking at the balling method from tropic marin.
Im living in Europe so its a lot cheaper than the states.
I can get 3x 2kg of the powder for 32 euro (37 dollar) witch lasts 95 days.
Triton was 117 euro for 5 liters (138 dollar) witch lasts 65 days.

Ialready have a kalk stirrer running and I can not add more thank 1dkh per day as I do not have more evaporation.

So the gap to fill with 2 part is 1,9 dkh.

I got room for 5 liter containers (maybe 10l if I rearange some stuff) which means I need to refill them olmost every week...

So I wonder if I could do the same as a kalkwasser stirrer and just dump in 2kg of powder in a 5l reactor and stir it a few times a day?

An other alternative is ofcourse a calcium reactor but they are pretty expensive as my tank is only 350l (90gallon).

What do you guys think? Has any one tried a soda ash/calcium cloride stirrer before?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The calcium chloride is super soluble and will all dissolve.

You might be able to do that with sodium bicarbonate (the least soluble alk additive), but it seems unnecessary since it too is quite soluble relative to kalkwasser so the amount you'd deliver each day is low and well served by a simple dosing pump from a reservoir.

 

[Aquajan]

OK thats surprisingly not a no

If the solution could be as strong as the Triton solution it would be ok I guess.
I could also use sodiumcarbonate to make a more potent solution.

I wonder if I calculated it right..
When I want to raise the kh 1 point on 100liters.
I would need 1.8 gram with sodiumcarbonate and 3 gram with sodiumbicarbonate.
Saturated solutions at 20°c would be for carbonate 214g/l and bicarbonaten96g/l.
So if I would make 5 solutions and dose my 350liter tank for a 2dkh/day consumption it would mean:

1:sodiumcarbonate 5x214 = 1070/1,8 = 594,44/3,5= 169, 84/2=
84,92days
2:sodiumbicarbonate 5x96 = 480/3= 16/3,5= 43,71/2=
22,85days

Did I do the math right? If so the sodiumcarbonate lasts long enough.

And another thing..
I was looking at the trace of fauna marin an I noticed it was very diluted at 120g and is it should be dosed dubble from the sodium bicarbonate solution.
So that would mean I would dose 5 liters in 11 days..

So I'm looking at fauna marin right now as I just need to add 1x 25ml trace to the kh and 2x25ml trace to the ca solution.
But.. Fm uses sodiumbicarbonate and says to put 500 gram in 5 liter of water and add 25ml of trace 3.
But if I would use sodiumbicarbonate which lasts 3,71x longer can I put 92,91ml of trace in? Or is this a bad idea?

Trace 3 consists of:
Potassium, Sodium Fluor, Iodine, Bromine, stabilisers. Based on inorganic compounds.

Fm also claims that their kh solution raises kh 0,5 10ml solution / 100liter.
That would mean 2 gram of powder raise the kh by 1dkh instead of 3 gram.
Altough they claim to use sodiumbicarbonate...
How is this possible?
Do company's mix sodium carbonate and bicarbonate?
Or are my calculations all wrong

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think it would be interesting to see how well this works and what degree of saturation (potency) can be attained in reality. It will depend on temperature and stirring.

I don't understand what you mean by "So if I would make 5 solutions".

 

[Aquajan]

Sorry that should be.
So if I would make 5 liter solutions and dose my 350liter tank for a 2dkh/day consumption it would mean:

I got the solubility from Wikipedia but I see thats very optimistic.. some other sites note other numbers like 170 gram per liter or as u reccomend with the 2 part recept 156 gram per liter.

If I would heat up the water to 25°c and manage to desolve 250 gram of sodium carbonate, would it go back out of solution if it cools off again to let's say 15°c?

 

[Aquajan]

Scratch that last question..
As expected it goes back out of solution.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If you have the reactor now, it might be most prudent to set up up not on the tank and try it, seeing what the effluent produces.

If you have a conductivity meter we can track potency that way, or by alk test after dilution.

 

[Aquajan]

It took a while but I managed to build a reactor from some stuf I had laying around.
I've put 312grams of sodium bicarbonate in 4 liters of water at 23°c and ame now waiting how long it takes to desolve with the very slow stirrer (neck cleaner of old Skimmer) maybe to slow...

If this desolves completely I will keep adding more to see when it stops dissolving.

 

[Aquajan]

After a long mixing period I have dissolved approximately 420 grams of sodium bicarbonate in 4 liters of water at 23°c.
Which is 105 gram per 1 liter.
I measured the water with a max 5 kg kitchen scale and the powder with a precision max 200 gram scale.
The temprature was measured with a simple glass aquarium thermometer so this is probably not 100% acurate.
Ambient room temprature is 24°c.

Adding more than 420 gram results in undissolved powder on the bottom no matter how long it is mixed.
After adding 1 more liter of rodi water the 40grams of extra powder I added on top of the 420 grams dissolved completely.

So the reactor should work but definitely not with the stirring mechanism I use now as it is too slow and not sturdy.
The motor used also needs to be strong as it need to mix d thick layer of powder.. something like a wormweel motor or alike would be a good option with about 20rpm.
The mixing stave driven by the motor should have horizontal rods connected to it on different levels (like a zeovit reactor) so all the media gets stirred.
The stirrer body should be filled to let's say 50% (as long the motor and mixing rods are strong enough) and be stirred for 1-5 minutes just after dosing so the powder has time to settle for the next dose.
Dosing should be done just like a well set up kalkstirrer by pushing water out of the rodi container with a dosing pump in the to bottem of the reactor so the fresh water has to go trough the media.
And than it should gravity flow out of an outlet at the top of the reactor with a wide enough hose of at least 12mm so it does not clog (fast) .

Whith my 6 liter reactor body I could probbably add 3 liter of media which should last me 142 days on my 350 liter tank.
Or 227 days with sodiumcarbonate if this is also possible.
It would take 28,5 liter to dissolve 3000 grams so this system saves a lot of space.
Another benefit is that it is super simple in maintenance as it is just a matter of adding more powder to the reactor.
So if the motor and/or mixing rod aren't strong enough to mix a thick layer of powder it is not such a big deal to ad a bit of powder every month or so.

The down side of this system is that extra trace elements can't be added to the alkalinity container as it would be constantly diluted.
So trace elements must be dosed seperatly.
It would also be wise to add some sort of an alarm to the rodi container so it does not runs dry unnoticed which would be bad as that would stop the alkalinity supply to the tank.

The only thing I wonder if the powder does not get hard over time.
And if this can also be done with sodiumcarbonate.? too elevate ph a bit. .
And if ph gets too high can I mix sodiumcarbonate and bicarbonate?