Soda poppin' ... and how to dose infinite Kalk

[4FordFamily]

Folks lets please keep this discussion on subject matter and not personal. There is no reason we cannot debate/discuss without lobbing personal attacks and being disrespectful.

Thanks

 

[HuduVudu]

Looks like Magnesium Hydroxide is a go. It isn't very soluble but I get a lot of it.

So, I am dissolving magnesium hydroxide in carbonated RO water and dosing from there. Looks like there is about 500ppm of magnesium in the RO when it is all said and done. Dosing a liter of this should move my Mag up about 10ppm on my aquarium. This should easily overcome any loss from Mag precipitation.

This will also be a nice way to dose up Mag without using Magnesium chloride.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

This will also be a nice way to dose up Mag without using Magnesium chloride.

If you mean as a stand alone magnesium supplement, keep in mind that a 12 ppm boost to magnesium using magnesium hydroxide (with or without CO2 to assist dissolution) will boost alkalinity by 2.8 dKH.

 

[HuduVudu]

So I have some time working with the system. Things are stable for testing. I want to put up a small sample of 5 days worth of testing just to get it out there and also for me to remember.

I am dosing 1900 mL of the mix solution a day to the tank. I have added a remix stage where I take the precipitate of the 2L that I make and re-carbonate that with fresh tank water.

EDIT: I have upped the CaOH dose to 1 tsp.

Ok today's results:

	Tank	Mix
Alk	7.3	29.4
Mag	1200	1230
Ca	450	855
PH		7.8

 

[HuduVudu]

Forgot to say which tests that I am using. Calcium - Salifert, Magnesium - Salifert, Alkalinity - Salifert, PH - Hanna Colorameter.

	Tank	Mix	Remix
Alk	7.7	23.4	>120
Mag	1200	1230	1800
Ca	450	855	>1500
PH		7.6	6.4

I am not sure that the remix can even be measured. I am going to exclude it from now on.

 

[HuduVudu]

Todays results. The alk in the mix was a little low. Not sure why. Mag test is new for the mix old for the tank.

	Tank	Mix
Alk	7.7	10.1
Mag	1200	1170
Ca	455	845
PH		7.8

 

[HuduVudu]

Not sure why the alk is so wonky. I think it is because sometimes I let the solution sit over night and sometimes I test after about 8 hours. Either way here are results two days later. I am late because I make 3000mL but I only dose 1900mL so I need to wait for the raw water to catch up.

	Tank	Mix
Alk	8.3	34.2
Mag	1230	1260
Ca	460	830
PH		7.5

 

[HuduVudu]

So I got lazy and didn't want to test last night in the dark so the solutions sat overnight. Looks like I was right about the alk issue. Seems that letting it sit drops the alk more. Probably because of a longer time for the CO2 to outgas.

	Tank	Mix
Alk	8.6	23.4
Mag	1200	1230
Ca	460	860
PH		7.4

 

[blasterman]

To the OP:

If you want to experiment thats fine, but if you can't take criticism perhaps you shouldn't post

Adding CO2 to calcium hydroxide will just form excessive precipitate. Adding weak acids to calcium hydroxide to increase solution levels has been practiced for years.

Its much simpler to add a weak acid in water to calcium carbonate or crushed coral to produce a solution that achieves both calcium and carbonate. C02 + calcium hydroxide is a square peg in a round hole. Ive done this and it works. You can also add fine calcium carbonate powder and bicarbonate to tank water as a one shot. Ive also done this.

Once dialed in calcium reactors are set it and virtually forget it devices. Not sure what problem you are trying to fix.

 

[HuduVudu]

To the OP:

If you want to experiment thats fine, but if you can't take criticism perhaps you shouldn't post

Perhaps if you were interested in an actual conversation to enlighten the stupid you would start with a less adversarial statement than this. It seems to me that you can't take criticism because you decided to start a fight over something that you don't care enough about to really understand.

Adding CO2 to calcium hydroxide will just form excessive precipitate.

And yet people use calcium hydroxide in RO all the time. This is just you trying to be contrary.

Adding weak acids to calcium hydroxide to increase solution levels has been practiced for years.

Yup and in the 35 years of me being in this hobby I have yet to see someone use carbonic acid as that weak acid. So you can make a generalization to hide the truth that people haven't tried this or more to the point told others about it if they had. Also I am not adding the calcium hydroxide to RO, just FYI.

Its much simpler to add a weak acid in water to calcium carbonate or crushed coral to produce a solution that achieves both calcium and carbonate.

Maybe, but it will cost you at a minimum $1000 dollars to do. Is there a chance that maybe this isn't what everyone wants to do?

C02 + calcium hydroxide is a square peg in a round hole.

To who? You? You have deemed it to be not worthy of your time, so why bother to post. Move along in your smug certainty and find another place to pontificate your greatness.

You can also add fine calcium carbonate powder and bicarbonate to tank water as a one shot. Ive also done this.

Wow just wow! This method will have really poor yield because it takes time for the weak acid to break the calcium carbonate down. That is why you need a calcium reactor to increase contact time. You act like I don't understand what I am doing. I have tried many many many methods too. I didn't just start this hobby a couple of days ... or years ago.

Once dialed in calcium reactors are set it and virtually forget it devices.

Yup in fact I bought my first reactor in 1995. Great for what they are.

Not sure what problem you are trying to fix.

But you ARE sure that I am stupid and have the same problems you do. In fact so sure you are willing to be rude and condescending to prove it.

Really why did you even bother to post?

 

[HuduVudu]

I was asked what it is exactly that I am doing, so I made a video.

 

[arking_mark]

I'm not sure I understand everything.

I think your goal is a single balanced supplement that provides Ca/Alk without impacting your salinity.

You use carbonated saltwater and kalk.

Adding excess CO2 to the water drives down ph, but allows you to super saturate the saltwater with kalk without producing a super high ph. Adding the right quantity of CO2 allows you to reach a saturated target ph that is aligned with your tank and can be added direcy without affectng your salinity.

Very interesting.

 

[HuduVudu]

An interesting thought on driving down the PH using carbonic acid in a solution is if the solution has hydroxl ions, basic solution, when it starts then those hydroxl ions don't come back when the carbonic acid is driven off through CO2 removal.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

An interesting thought on driving down the PH using carbonic acid in a solution is if the solution has hydroxl ions, basic solution, when it starts then those hydroxl ions don't come back when the carbonic acid is driven off through CO2 removal.

If you keep removing CO2 form any solution containing bicarbonate or carbonate, hydroxide rises, but if you limit the CO2 removal, by say, using normal air with CO2, then you will limit how much of it gets converted back hydroxide. If you do not limit the CO2 removal, the solution will ultimately contain no dissolved bicarbonate or carbonate. It will blow off as CO2 , precipitate as carbonate salts, and leave hydroxide.

 

[Doctorgori]

nothing constructive to add, but to the OP; I’m not questioning the value of this, just searching for the value add of this new thing vs adding Vinegar, et (minus the carbon effects). Sincere ...
PS. I don’t now a mole from a molecule, so if. you will ...

 

[HuduVudu]

@Doctorgori

This is mostly going to apply to small tanks with high demand. Having a consistent way to mineralize is important. Using top off for mineralization slaves you to a minimum amount. So if throughout the year you see top-offs ranging from 500ml to 1000ml then you have 500ml of top off to work with. This may work for low load tanks but higher loads are going to struggle with this.

Acetic acid (Vinegar) also has the problem of being tied to the top off. This is less of a problem because you can push more CaOH (Calcium Hydroxide or in RO water Kalkwasser) in the top off you have. The very undesirable effect of this is that you are carbon dosing whether you want to or not and you have no control over the amount of vinegar being dosed. There is a reason this isn't a very used or discussed. Also if you have a high load you are going to be really carbon dosing. Once again smaller tanks this can be VERY undesirable. Also with a carbon dosing you are locked into a skimmer. For a large percentage of aquarists this isn't an issue, but for some it isn't desirable.

There are other alternatives to doing this. Carbo Calcium (Calcium Formate) comes to mind. There are some downsides to this type of calcium addition, but they are minor.

I am not a fan of two part. It works, but it requires you to be very consistent on water changes and they need to be large. I saw a beautiful packed 29 gallon SPS tank here where the aquarist used Kalk for alk and then made up the calcium using CaCl (Calcium Chloride or the other side of the two part). This required 30% weekly water changes. His technique worked well because he fixed the Cl (Chloride) imbalance and made up for trace elements also. The downside being he had to do water changes. For some this is not a problem.

I never meant this thread to be the end all in mineralization. What instead I was hoping to achieve was another tool that other aquarists might find useful for their situation. There is more than one way to skin a cat so the saying goes, and I believe that this is very true. Everyone has their own set of constraints to deal with and the more options that are available the better off everyone is. I didn't realize that there seems to be some sort of controversy surrounding all of this, but alas ...

 

[Doctorgori]

hey appreciate the reply, that took time.
Yeah I used to do the saturated kalk ala vinegar as my tank is in a very climate controlled basement but the variance in vinegar dosing turned me off ...good point on that
I still use kalk in the top off as I get a consistent evap rate; kalk also mitigates the inherent 2pt salinity issues or delays its when used in combo

 

[HuduVudu]

More information to add to the fire here.

Just got back an ICP test. They do take forever to come back. Anyway this is after about 3 weeks without a water change. I am going to to follow up with the nickel vanadium on my build thread because it affects my new 60 build.

 

[HuduVudu]

Ok, I want to follow up on this post. This hobby takes time and sometimes things get lost. I don't consider 7 months to be a huge amount of time but watching the tank and the effects this method has, I am very confident that it is working well. I also did some ICP tests on the solutions (if any are interested I can put up the values). The high values seem to throw the instruments off a bit but the data is solid to support the conclusions that I have made.

Here is the tank now. I have some big consumers that are really starting to kick in. The stylo is an absolute weed and I have fragged it multiple times for my "new" tank.

 

[Reefahholic]

I was asked what it is exactly that I am doing, so I made a video.

I found the video quite interesting. Thanks for sharing.