Kalkwasser

[plankton123]

Odd Ball,

I believe what BReefCase is refering to
is the concentration of Acetic Acid; in
this case 5% (by volume?). In my case,
my white rice vinegar is 4.1%. Go figure.
So, just scale accordingly.

25 ml of 5% should be equiv to x ml of 4.1%
Or, x ~ 30.5 ml of 4.1 %

So, tommorrow when I remake my weekly batch
of limewater I'll try adding half of 30.5 ml of 4.1% per quart. I usually mix 4 gallons.

I'll report the Ca++ concentration of the acedic acid batch versus the non-acedic acid
batch using Seachem test kit. I guess I'll have to test right after making batch and each day thereafter for the rest of the week to see if the Ca++ level drops off with time and at what rate. I guess I'll report pH to see if limewater is picking up any CO2, etc.

Talk to you in a week.

Scott

 

[BReefCase]

Odd Ball -- If you use Acetic Acid from a chemical company, buy a concentration of 5 per centAcetic Acid in water (an aqueous solution). If you use Distilled White Vinegar from the grocery store, look for an "acidity" of 5 per cent on the label. Never use any colored or flavored or Apple Vinegars.

"Kalk" powder is either lab-grade Ca(OH)2 (Calcium Hydroxide) from a chemical company, Kalkwasser Mix from an aquarium supplier, or Pickling Lime from the grocery store. It's all about the same. Use 1/2 teaspoon of the powder per quart of solution -- maybe a bit more if you use Pickling Lime from the grocery store, which is less Calcium by weight than the other sources.

Some words of caution, especially for any reefkeeping newbies out there -- If you are using Vinegar in your Kalk mix for the first time, I'd start off with 5 ml per quart at first. If you find you still need to get more Calcium into your tank per unit Kalkwasser, work up over a couple of weeks to a max of 12-15 ml per quart (the stoichiometric amount for Carbonate as recommended by Craig Bingman), or if you are feeling brave or really need lots of extra Calcium and de-Nitrate action as I do, a max of 24-30 ml (the stoichiometric amount for Bicarbonate, which I use).

Don't go whole-hog on the Vinegar from the start until you are sure your tank needs it and will take it without experiencing radical changes in pH, Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium, and the health of your critters and your Nitrifying bacteria. Measure ph, Alk, Calcium, Magnesium, and Nitrates with Salifert kits as you work up to more Vinegar.
Observe your livestock, especially if you have any really delicate corals or fish, to see that they behave normally as you use more Vinegar.

My tanks have very little evaporation, so I have to use lots of Vinegar to put in lots of Calcium with very little makeup water. If your tanks have tons of evaporation, use less Vinegar per volume since you don't need such a high Calcium boost per unit of Kalk water.

As with all things reefing, go slow, observe the reaction of your tank to any changes in what you add every week, and understand what and why you are doing. I don't want anyone coming back here on the board and blaming me for their fish that died when they poured 1000ml of Glacial Acetic Acid into their 55 gallon tank!

My methods are safe for me in my tanks -- your mileage may vary, so use due care.

 

[Odd Ball]

Wooohoo!

Ok, ok, ok. So, if I want to start adding
Kalk sometime soon, what do I need?

So - I have a gallon jug hanging under my tank configured with a IV and bubbler running into my tank. What above do I put in the jug?

Looks like I'll need 5% Acetic Acid/Vinegar (white I take it) and dissolve 1/2 Ca(OH)2 to 1 quart RO water (which I have now

)
Dumb question - 5% is exactly what? tablespoon? and 1/2 of what? cup?

Question - where or what is Ca(OH)2 - I don't have any. Is this the baal pickle lime people are talking about?

Anyway - thanks. You drip over night I take it? Just want to be sure. This would be a simple set up it sounds like and a good way to help control pH which I need right now.

 

[Anonymous]

I bet he's an English teacher

 

[DennisL]

Lazy Persons Kalkwasser

Start with dosing jug. In my case, 2.5 gallons. Add 1 rounded tablespoon of kalk. Pour some Heinz Distilled White Vinegar (5% acidity) into the jug. Maybe 50 ml or so. Shake it a couple times. Add RO water to fill the jug. Hang the jug in place and CLOSE the dripper (needle valve, ball valve, etc.). Let it sit several hours, or overnight. Then open the valve and let 'er drip.

Anecdotes 1: I started using vinegar several months ago at the suggestion of Ken Uy http://kensreef.tripod.com/reef2.htm. He said it would get more calcium into the system and help to clean out my dripping tubes.

Anecdote 2: Dustin Dorfman at Aquarium City has one of the best SPS tanks around. http://www.theaquariumcity.com/ used to stir the white milky stuff at the bottom so it would drip into the tank!

[ August 19, 2001: Message edited by: DennisL ]

[ August 19, 2001: Message edited by: DennisL ]

 

[scavdog]

Excellent post. This answers many questions. I would love to repost some of this data on my web site.

 

[odie]

Hey Breefcase,
just printed out this entire thread and added it to my reef book collection. Nice job on the reply. Just one qusetion...Are you related to the author of War and Peace.

 

[smokin reefer]

Ok, this guy says different about the sand clumping. And also suggests diferent amounts of vinegar to use. Who is right? Check it out. http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1999/oct/bio/default.asp

 

[DeathWish302]

BReefCase:

You claim to use a 5% solution of Acetic acid. If my chem.know-how serves me right(bear with me, it's been 3 years since i took any courses involving it), there are 5 moles of solute/ 1 liter of solution. Say i have some 65% Acetic acid at home, that means i have to "cut" the current solution with 15 liters of RO/DI water? I just cannot remember if the molarity was on an exponential scale. Any help appreciated so i can use this bottle i have lying around.

Thanks,
DW302

 

[ReefLion]

BReefcase,

I am also curious about the Kalkreactor issue, so I thought I'd give you some backgroud to get your thoughts.

A Kalkwasser reactor or "Nilsen" reactor is basically a sealed holding container. Kalk powder is placed inside in an amount (far) in excess of its solubility, so that when the container is filled with water there is still a lot of undissolved powder at the bottom. Water is dosed in through an input line from a large holding container. The fresh water input forces saturated kalk out of the container through an output line, which gets dripped into the tank. Usually these reactors include some sort of stirring mechanism that keeps the undissolved kalk from clumping up.

That's basically it. A sealed cylinder full of water and excess kalk powder. Fresh water is dosed in from a holding tank, which forces saturated kalkwasser out the other end (usually the top) and into the tank. The theory is that because the kalk itself is never exposed to air, there is little precipitation of the things we want to avoid.

The question presented by this thread is whether one can add vinegar to the large vessel holding the input water. This water generally sits around for a while before eventually going through the reactor. Imagine adding a few gallons of freshwater to a big container along with vinegar, and that sitting around for a few days as it gets dosed through the reactor.

Any problems using vinegar in this manner?

Hope my explanation is clear.

ReefLion

 

[Odd Ball]

Dumb question - does it matter what type of jug this is mixed in? I'd wager I can get a 1 or 2 quart jug at the store and plug
in the IV tubing. Seal it with something and
hang under the tank with IV tube dangling over the sumps water.

Last question. I do not have any kalk powder. Balls pickle lime is what people are using as a substitute? Maybe I should just order some kalk powder and be done. Does one mix better than the other?

Also - the Vinegar is no problem. I have some at home. I think I have that covered.

The idea is to mix it and let it stand for a couple of hours? Then bubble into the tank. Any thoughts at what rate? I'd wager we'd need to watch the pH and Calicum levels and then set rate accordingly.

And lastly, I hear it is better to drip during the night. Since I'm going the cheap and simple route first (no reactor, etc), mine would drip 24x7... Is this good or bad?

I really should get a reactor but I'm getting ready to spend 300+ dollars on a new skimmer to replace my ETSS RD3. Lifereef, here I come...

Thanks again. This is by far one of the best threads I've read on this board in a while. Thank you all for helping.

Regards!

 

[BReefCase]

tangirl -- An English teacher? Really? You sure do know how to hurt a guy....

ScavDog -- Everything I've posted here is common knowledge and free for the repeating. I certainly didn't invent inorganic chemistry. Knock yourself out.

Smokin -- I reference Bingman's work earlier in the thread. His 12.2 ml of Vinegar is working to the Carbonate (1 molar) endpoint, as he describes at the URL you posted. That's about equal to my 12-15 ml of Vinegar recommendation. I work to the Bicarbonate endpoint (2 molar, or a bit more than twice Bingman's 12.2 ml figure), or 24.4 ml, hence my 25-30 ml recommendation. The choice between 12.2 and 24.4 ml of Vinegar as maximum depends on how much Calcium boost you need and how much organic Carbon from the Vinegar you are willing to end up with in your tank. What did Bingman say about sand clumping?

DeathWish302 -- Don't confuse "per cent solution" with the "Molarity" or the "Normality" of the Acid. 5 molecular weights of Acid per liter is 5 Molar, or for a mono-protic Acid, 5 Normal, not 5 per cent. 5 per cent means 50 ml of pure Glacial Acetic Acid added to 950 ml water, for a total of 1000ml or 1 liter of 5% aqueous Acid solution.

Since 5% goes into 65% exactly 13 times, to make your 65% Acid into 5% Acid, you need to add 12ml of water to each 1 ml of the 65% solution for a total of 13ml 5% aqueous Acid solution.

For example, that would be 10 ml of your stock 65% Acid plus 120 ml of distilled water to make 130 ml of 5% Acid solution. Or, just use 1 ml of the 65% Acid in your Kalk instead of 13 ml of the weaker 5% Acid. Either way. By the way, if you do decide to dilute the 65% Acid with water, be sure to add small quantities of the concentrated 65% Acid into an excess of cold distilled (or RO) water. Never pour water into concentrated Acid, as the sudden "heat of dilution" released can cause a steam eruption that sends drops of the Acid flying in all directions.

ReefLion -- Adding the Vinegar into the feedwater to a Nilson reactor will give at least some of the same benefit of using Vinegar, but perhaps not quite as much as dissolving the Kalk powder into Vinegar first to form Calcium Acetate before adding the water. By diluting the Vinegar into the water first, you are asking the Kalk and the Vinegar to "find each other" in the total volume of the water -- which it may in fact do given enough time. Could you perhaps add the Vinegar to the Kalk to form a paste and then admit the feed water over time? I know little about these reactors. As long as the water, Kalk, and Vinegar get mixed eventually you should see some benefit over just water.

OddBall -- Any reasonable drip setup will work. Just make sure air can get in at the top as liquid drips out the bottom, otherwise a vacuum forms inside and collapses your jug. Pickling Lime is the same as Kalk with a little water already complexed to the Calcium Hydroxide. Measure and use it just like Kalk powder. Let stand until any precipitate formed settles out, or drip the whole mess into the tank as you prefer. I run a quart into the tank in about an hour. The idea behind dripping at night is that the alkaline Kalk solution helps support your tank's pH during darkness when pH might otherwise fall a bit. I don't bother -- I'll drip whenever. I've frankly never found a reactor or other similar reef gizmoid processors to be needed or worth the trouble, although many reefers on the board obviously enjoy tinkering with them for tinkering's sake as a sort of hobby-within-a-hobby, and do derive some benefits from them.

 

[tetra]

ok, after reading this thread-I got excited and try the vinegar(20mL) in the mixing of my pickling lime(one gallon bottle). So I dose over-night. pH of tank prior to dosing (9pm-8/20/01) is 8.20, this morning after dosing, the pH is 8.30 . So much of a different. My refugium light is still on right now. Not sure the pH difference is due to the refugium or not. If all is normal, you would think that adding vinegar to the mix will result in a drop in pH after dosing, but appearantly not. Some other factors must be involved. Temp.? Photosynthesis of corals or refugium? In any case the mixture is more clear than before. vinegar does make more caOH dissolved per volume. Hope that helps anyone that is curious wether the pH will be affected by the vinegar.

 

[tetra]

I meant not much of a different in pHs...sorry

 

[Mouse]

Check out the brain on Breefcase.

Respek to da man

 

[smokin reefer]

"What did Bingman say about sand clumping?"
He must not have be the one that made that statement, but I have read that the only side effect to adding vinager is the sand clumping. And not all reported this. Don't know who said it, or posted it. But I will continue to look, and post it when I find it.

 

[Bob Gardner]

Briefcase, I want to try out this vinager on my Kalkwasser feed. Currently I use a Kalk dosing jar that has a motor driven stirer rotating in it. I load it with calc' hydroxide and feed RO water to it from a
3gl reservour sitting at one end of the top of my reef. I could obviously put the new mix into the reservour and drip it directly into my sump butis it likely to cause any change in the chemistry that you have described if I pass it through the doser that already has kalkwasser in it?
Bob

 

[Toadally1]

I dose kalk using a five gallon bucket sitting under the tank stand using a auto top off sensor switch. It doses + or - 1" in the sump. I've noticed in the past that over time the calcium would stay around 450 to 480 but the alkalinity would drop very low to around 1.5 sometimes. Do you think I could benefit by using vinegar with this set up? How much should I use? I'm adding about 2 tsp. of kalk per gallon. Thanks!

 

[BReefCase]

Bob Gardner -- Your situation sounds a bit like Reeflion's. Are your using essentially a Nilsen reactor? If so, same answer applies -- dissolving the Kalk in Vinegar first is the most desirable way to proceed, but introducing the Vinegar into the feed water should yield benefits also. As long as Kalk, Vinegar and water get mixed and have some time to react before dripping into the tank, you should be good to go.

Toadally -- 480 ppm seems a bit high for Calcium long-term. From your low Alkalinity, I'm wondering if you are experiencing some CaCO3 precipitation from TOO HIGH Calcium levels or from too rapid addition. Maybe you'd be better off ion-balance wise by actually adding a bit less Kalk, rather than increasing the Calcium content?

I also have to wonder if your top-off method is causing Kalk to be added to the tank too fast and causing Carbonate precipitation or pH swings affecting your Alkalinity. When your level switch turns the top-off on, how fast does Kalk enter the tank? If it's more rapidly than at a slow steady drip, I'd suggest you consider finding another, slower, top-off method.

If you do want to try the Vinegar method to see if you get better ionic balance over time, try slowly dripping quart- or gallon-size batches (you don't say how big your tank is and I haven't visited your web site yet to find out) manually whenever a good Calcium test indicates that Calcium levels are below 450. I can't in good faith advise you to add enough Vinegar right off to make 5 gallons of Kalk solution. Smaller batches will give better control until you figure out how to proceed long-term.

 

[Bob Gardner]

Briefcase, I'm not sure what a nilsen reactor is but I do know that a calcium reactor is a device with calcium granuals in it and has tank water pumped through it whils't at the same time feeding CO2 into it. This is different to my kalkwasser doser.
My intention is to mix the vinager and hydroxide with RO in my reservour and then my question is: is it ok to pass it through the kalk doser,which already has kalkwasser without vinager in it. The feed water to this device enters it at the bottom so that it adds to the volume and some kalkwasser is then dripped into the sump from the top of the mix.

Bob