Instructions for dosing Kalkwasser slurry (NOT saturated Kalkwasser!)

[Laith]

I have been experimenting with dosing Kalkwasser to my tank in addition to my Balling dosing of Carbonate and Calcium. I want to do this for the following reasons:

1. Reduce the amount of NaCl that is being added to the tank through dosing Sodium bicarbonate and Calcium chloride (Sodium, Na plus chloride, Cl equals NaCl or salt. I suspect that this is what is responsible for slowly raising the salinity in my tank.

2. Raise pH of the tank.

3. Reduce the amount of Balling carbonate and Calcium that I'm currently adding to the tank. At the moment I'm dosing 720ml of carbonate and 168ml of calcium a day to the tank and these amounts are increasing to keep up with the growth of coral in the tank. I want my dosing containers to last longer requiring less frequent refills: current carbonate container is 22 liters and the Calcium container is 5 liters. You do the math...

I was given a link to an extremely interesting video about dosing Kalkwasser slurry instead of saturated Kalkwasser:



I have been trying to find more information on exactly the dosing amounts required for dosing Kalkwasser slurry instead of just saturated Kalkwasser but everything I've found always points back to how to dose saturated Kalkwasser!

Can someone point me in the right direction to find more info on details of dosing the slurry instead of the saturated version of Kalkwasser?

 

[fryman]

Check youtube for a guy named telegraham


He has some newer videos too but they're really long.

Also reefdudes has a video.

 

[Koigula]

It can and does work. I would start by saying you only tweak methodologies and do not change them. Everytime you do it is a 3 or more month set back for stony corals.

The issue is more of a risk analysis with specific requirements. Are you tapped out on evaporation rate? If not just research topic with no immediate action.

1 Slurries are 2 to 6% with mechanical stirring not pump. Pumping abrasive is a fools errand fpr ceramic on ceramic shafts.

2. The slurry can clog if usage is not small bore tubing without settling. You will get settling so a bit of a time bomb. One day of missing kalk due to a plug is bs and not worth it. This bs will happen when away.

3. Above 8.5 or 8.6 CO2 is mostly gone and desired effect is limited.

Ca(OH)2 + CO2 + NaCl goes to CaCl + NaHCO3 + H20.

pH creep is exponential going past this is useless. Bacterial types of growth will be modified.

4. Oddly excessive groth is linked to rtn annecdotally.

5. Extreme flow or a recirculating mixer in sump is also now needed. More pumps more points of failure unless an old school loose ac rotor pump.

The risk reward at this piint is cost savings for aquaculture farms. One large bottle of All for Reef powder is still a balanced additive and will get sick results with much less risk for me.

Keep pH high 8.4 and leave the coral mortality to the youtubers who likely have > 60% mortality rates.

That is my thoughts. Why pay 40 to 150 for frags and experiment on them. T5 bulbs and kalk all the way!! Chunky sticks can buy more balanced additives and salt.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm not a fan of dosing a slurry for several reasons, but folks have been doing it since the dawn of the age of kalkwasser decades ago, and some folks like it. Anthony Calfo was a big proponent of it years ago.

Here's why I do not prefer it to dosing from a settled reservoir:

1. It is challenging to reproducibly control the potency (that is, the amount of suspended material).

2. The solids entering the aquarium will have an increased tendency to cause locally high pH and precipitate calcium carbonate around and on the calcium hydroxide particles in the seawater.

3. If the calcium hydroxide solids encounter organisms before they completely dissolve, they will be highly irritating to tissue surfaces.

4. Dosing a slurry allows none of the self-purification that settled reservoirs of limewater (kalkwasser) undergo as some undesirable impurities settle out. Thus, it is more important that the material be of high quality.

 

[Laith]

I'm not a fan of dosing a slurry for several reasons, but folks have been doing it since the dawn of the age of kalkwasser decades ago, and some folks like it. Anthony Calfo was a big proponent of it years ago.

Here's why I do not prefer it to dosing from a settled reservoir:

1. It is challenging to reproducibly control the potency (that is, the amount of suspended material).

2. The solids entering the aquarium will have an increased tendency to cause locally high pH and precipitate calcium carbonate around and on the calcium hydroxide particles in the seawater.

3. If the calcium hydroxide solids encounter organisms before they completely dissolve, they will be highly irritating to tissue surfaces.

4. Dosing a slurry allows none of the self-purification that settled reservoirs of limewater (kalkwasser) undergo as some undesirable impurities settle out. Thus, it is more important that the material be of high quality.

Thanks Randy for the inputs. I understand the points you are making.

I can mitigate points 2 and 3 as the dosing will happen in the overflow of the tank so it will go down into a rollermat and then through the entire length of the sump (210cm long) and then up through both return pumps. There isn't an insane amount of flow through the sump, about 6,000-7,000 l/h but it should be more than enough to decrease the risk of precipitation. By the time it gets back to the tank it should no longer be calcium hydroxide...

Your point 4 is one of the main reasons I'm hesitant and want to learn more. It does seem that others have had success despite the lack of self-purification but I'm still on the fence on that one.

Point 1 is something I'm trying to get my head around, even in a settled reservoir model: Once the water in the settled reservoir model is "saturated", does it stay saturated or does the saturation decrease because more of the Kalk settles out of solution? For example, if I mix up a Kalkwasser solution and then wait X amount of time for settling and then pour just the clear liquid into a dosing container (and throw the precipitate away) will the liquid in the dosing container remain saturated? In other words, the calcium hydroxide stays in solution indefinitely?

One of the reasons I'm looking at dosing slurry is I would need a smaller reactor as I would dose less ml to get the same effect...

 

[Laith]

Check youtube for a guy named telegraham


He has some newer videos too but they're really long.

Also reefdudes has a video.

Thanks for those. The second video is the one I referenced and it doesn't say much about dosing amounts etc.

But I have found another video by telegraham which I've just started to watch. I'll see if there is more info in that.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Point 1 is something I'm trying to get my head around, even in a settled reservoir model: Once the water in the settled reservoir model is "saturated", does it stay saturated or does the saturation decrease because more of the Kalk settles out of solution? For example, if I mix up a Kalkwasser solution and then wait X amount of time for settling and then pour just the clear liquid into a dosing container (and throw the precipitate away) will the liquid in the dosing container remain saturated? In other words, the calcium hydroxide stays in solution indefinitely?

For a settled reservoir, the excess solids settle out, but the dissolved ones stay in solution unless you drive CO2 into it. I tested it here for a typical reservoir deliver time of a few weeks:

The Degradation of Limewater in Air - Reefkeeping.com

Figure 2. The conductivity of the limewater in my dosing reservoir as a function of time.

 

[Laith]

And just a clarification:

For saturated Kalkwasser (NOT slurry) I was looking at dosing about 10 liters a day, which is below my lowest evaporation rate during the year.

Any adjustments required due to for some reason Kh going too high or too low would automatically be taken care of by my KH Director which controls my Balling dosing of carbonate.

 

[Laith]

For a settled reservoir, the excess solids settle out, but the dissolved ones stay in solution unless you drive CO2 into it. I tested it here for a typical reservoir deliver time of a few weeks:

The Degradation of Limewater in Air - Reefkeeping.com

Figure 2. The conductivity of the limewater in my dosing reservoir as a function of time.

I haven't yet had the time to read the info in your link but will do so.

In the meantime, what you are saying is that without interaction with CO2 and without a requirement for mixing the solution regularly, the saturation levels should remain constant, as your graph shows?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I haven't yet had the time to read the info in your link but will do so.

In the meantime, what you are saying is that without interaction with CO2 and without a requirement for mixing the solution regularly, the saturation levels should remain constant, as your graph shows?

yes. In a closed top Brute can it is stable.

 

[2una]

And just a clarification:

For saturated Kalkwasser (NOT slurry) I was looking at dosing about 10 liters a day, which is below my lowest evaporation rate during the year.

Any adjustments required due to for some reason Kh going too high or too low would automatically be taken care of by my KH Director which controls my Balling dosing of carbonate.

Wouldn't NaOH be another avenue to explore

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Wouldn't NaOH be another avenue to explore

It would seem so to me.

Second New DIY Two Part Recipe with Higher pH Boost

In a previous thread, I posted a true two part DIY recipe: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-diy-two-part-recipes-with-higher-ph-boost.344500/ But some folks may want to just swap the new ingredient into my 2/3 part recipe (as used by BRS, for example). Here's the original recipe link...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[2una]

It would seem so to me.

Second New DIY Two Part Recipe with Higher pH Boost

In a previous thread, I posted a true two part DIY recipe: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-diy-two-part-recipes-with-higher-ph-boost.344500/ But some folks may want to just swap the new ingredient into my 2/3 part recipe (as used by BRS, for example). Here's the original recipe link...

www.reef2reef.com

Yes but that's at 283g per gal (3.78L). = (75g/L)
Wiki stats say @25C solubility = 1000g per L or can that not be used for RODI ?
That's got to be crazy strong if its even possible

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes but that's at 283g per gal (3.78L). = (75g/L)
Wiki stats say @25C solubility = 1000g per L or can that not be used for RODI ?
That's got to be crazy strong if its even possible

I'm not sure what you are asking.

NaOH can be made very concentrated, but generally there's no reason to do so, and in the recipe thread above, it is designed to match the potency of the sodium carbonate two part.

 

[2una]

I'm not sure what you are asking.

NaOH can be made very concentrated, but generally there's no reason to do so, and in the recipe thread above, it is designed to match the potency of the sodium carbonate two part.

Randy where is the brick wall to stop just doubling the recipe strength?, the Ca part?
That would in essence half the dosing amount needed - hence achieving what he wants to with not having to use larger & larger dosing containers.
I'm kind of following along as i'm getting into a similar boat having lately come back to dosing from carx.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Randy where is the brick wall to stop just doubling the recipe strength?, the Ca part?
That would in essence half the dosing amount needed - hence achieving what he wants to with not having to use larger & larger dosing containers.
I'm kind of following along as i'm getting into a similar boat having lately come back to dosing from carx.

I not sure it is desirable to dose any alk form or even calcium in super concentrated strength out of fear of localized precipitation of calcium carbonate when it hits the water.

But on the specific question, calcium chloride is less soluble than is sodium hydroxide and will limit the possible potency of a 1:1 two part system.

 

[Laith]

Wouldn't NaOH be another avenue to explore

That would be another avenue, if all I wanted was a pH boost. But as well as a pH boost:

- I want to reduce the amount of NaCl slowly accumulating in the tank which is what is I suspect slowly (very slowly) raising my salinity. This from dosing Sodium carbonate and Calcium chloride with my Balling two part.

- I want to reduce the amount of Balling solutions I'm dosing (720ml Carbonate a day and rising and 168ml of Calcium a day and also rising). My current Carbonate container is 22 liters and my Calcium container is 5 liters and I don't have infinite space to increase the size of the containers.

So a Kalk slurry would allow to keep my dKH and Ca numbers where I want them for less dosing amounts with the added value of a pH boost (and less increase in NaCl in the tank).

 

[Shooter6]

That would be another avenue, if all I wanted was a pH boost. But as well as a pH boost:

- I want to reduce the amount of NaCl slowly accumulating in the tank which is what is I suspect slowly (very slowly) raising my salinity. This from dosing Sodium carbonate and Calcium chloride with my Balling two part.

- I want to reduce the amount of Balling solutions I'm dosing (720ml Carbonate a day and rising and 168ml of Calcium a day and also rising). My current Carbonate container is 22 liters and my Calcium container is 5 liters and I don't have infinite space to increase the size of the containers.

So a Kalk slurry would allow to keep my dKH and Ca numbers where I want them for less dosing amounts with the added value of a pH boost (and less increase in NaCl in the tank).

My understanding is sodium hydroxide increases the corals ability to use the calcium, magnesium and alk therefore lowering the amount needed to be dosed.

Another option you have, I use myself, is dosing tm all for reef. I found switching from 3 part to afr lowered my daily dose needs by about 70%. Currently I'm dosing just under 5 gal a day of kalk, through an avast marine kalk stirrer and 30ml of tm afr a day.
The afr adds alk,cal,mag and 17 trace elements on top of everything. This is highly beneficial in my opinion.

 

[Laith]

My understanding is sodium hydroxide increases the corals ability to use the calcium, magnesium and alk therefore lowering the amount needed to be dosed.

Another option you have, I use myself, is dosing tm all for reef. I found switching from 3 part to afr lowered my daily dose needs by about 70%. Currently I'm dosing just under 5 gal a day of kalk, through an avast marine kalk stirrer and 30ml of tm afr a day.
The afr adds alk,cal,mag and 17 trace elements on top of everything. This is highly beneficial in my opinion.

That could be an interesting alternative... however does it raise pH? From my first look at it it doesn't seem to do that. Need to investigate further. Thanks!

 

[Shooter6]

That could be an interesting alternative... however does it raise pH? From my first look at it it doesn't seem to do that. Need to investigate further. Thanks!

Yes it does. Look up ati Aquaculture sodium hydroxide dosing on youtube. They are using it to raise pH and alk to combat the Calcium reactors driving pH down. From what he says it works really well BUT dosing is very small amounts and needs to be very precisely done. Probably best to dilute to a much less concentrated solution.