Kalkwasser residue

jrill · Oct 22, 2022

The left over Kalkwasser powder that is left at the bottom of the holding container. Is it just trash to be disposed off? or can you add more freshwater to to the left over powder to re saturate the mix.

Garf · Oct 22, 2022

jrill said:
The left over Kalkwasser powder that is left at the bottom of the holding container. Is it just trash to be disposed off? or can you add more freshwater to to the left over powder to re saturate the mix.

You can add more water to it to dissolve anything that was undissolved initially. Sooner or later you’ll want to get rid and start again though as it builds up calcium carbonate and impurities that do not stay in the kalkwasser solution.

jrill · Oct 22, 2022

Garf said:
You can add more water to it to dissolve anything that was undissolved initially. Sooner or later you’ll want to get rid and start again though as it builds up calcium carbonate and impurities that do not stay in the kalkwasser solution.

Thanks

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 22, 2022

The material at the bottom is a mix of several things, including reusable calcium hydroxide (if you added excess previously), and undissolvable magnesium hydroxide and calcium carbonate, which can just be left to accumulate and eventually thrown away.

jrill · Oct 22, 2022

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
The material at the bottom is a mix of several things, including reusable calcium hydroxide (if you added excess previously), and undissolvable magnesium hydroxide and calcium carbonate, which can just be left to accumulate and eventually thrown away.

Thanks

Celestion · Nov 8, 2022

Wow all alkalizing agents are so different, the slurry garbage form kalkwasser is odd ,

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 9, 2022

Celestion said:
Wow all alkalizing agents are so different, the slurry garbage form kalkwasser is odd ,

Yes, there are lots of options for dosing alkalinity and calcium that have different pros and cons.

I compare many of them here:

The Many Methods for Supplementing Calcium and Alkalinity - REEFEDITION

There is no aspect of reef aquarium chemistry more important than calcium and alkalinity. Many of my previous articles have described various aspects of these systems in detail. In reading those articles, aquarists will note one pervasive theme: that maintaining appropriate levels of each are...

www.reefedition.com

workhz · Nov 9, 2022

At least I did a search first but going to bump this instead of starting a new thread. Similar question.

I have a 5 gallon jug that I add kalkwasser powder to and connected to that jug is an external dosing pump with a tube that goes 3/4 of the way down the jug. Let me know if this is completely wrong:

I don't measure the kalkwasser powder precisely, just eyeball it. Fill a 1 gallon with rodi water, mix some powder, pour it into the jug then top off the jug with another 3-4 gallons of rodi. Shake. I do this in the morning and the pump works at night. I figure if there's excess it'll just settle.

Every 1-2 days, I'll just shake the jug again in the morning which gives it a good 12+ hrs to settle and the solution turns pretty cloudy which I'm guessing is just me remixing the excess that settled.

Any major issues with doing it this way? I dose iirc 3/4 gallon per day but my alkalinity still doesn't get beyond 8dkh so it had me thinking maybe i wasn't being efficient at making my solution fully concentrated.

Garf · Nov 9, 2022

workhz said:
At least I did a search first but going to bump this instead of starting a new thread. Similar question.

I have a 5 gallon jug that I add kalkwasser powder to and connected to that jug is an external dosing pump with a tube that goes 3/4 of the way down the jug. Let me know if this is completely wrong:

I don't measure the kalkwasser powder precisely, just eyeball it. Fill a 1 gallon with rodi water, mix some powder, pour it into the jug then top off the jug with another 3-4 gallons of rodi. Shake. I do this in the morning and the pump works at night. I figure if there's excess it'll just settle.

Every 1-2 days, I'll just shake the jug again in the morning which gives it a good 12+ hrs to settle and the solution turns pretty cloudy which I'm guessing is just me remixing the excess that settled.

Any major issues with doing it this way? I dose iirc 3/4 gallon per day but my alkalinity still doesn't get beyond 8dkh so it had me thinking maybe i wasn't being efficient at making my solution fully concentrated.

Sounds ok to me, as long as your getting some undissolved stuff in the bottom. Your probably depleting it a tiny amount by stirring it every few days though, I don’t stir intentionally after the initial mix.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 9, 2022

workhz said:
At least I did a search first but going to bump this instead of starting a new thread. Similar question.

I have a 5 gallon jug that I add kalkwasser powder to and connected to that jug is an external dosing pump with a tube that goes 3/4 of the way down the jug. Let me know if this is completely wrong:

I don't measure the kalkwasser powder precisely, just eyeball it. Fill a 1 gallon with rodi water, mix some powder, pour it into the jug then top off the jug with another 3-4 gallons of rodi. Shake. I do this in the morning and the pump works at night. I figure if there's excess it'll just settle.

Every 1-2 days, I'll just shake the jug again in the morning which gives it a good 12+ hrs to settle and the solution turns pretty cloudy which I'm guessing is just me remixing the excess that settled.

Any major issues with doing it this way? I dose iirc 3/4 gallon per day but my alkalinity still doesn't get beyond 8dkh so it had me thinking maybe i wasn't being efficient at making my solution fully concentrated.

Unless you measure the potency of the settled limewater, you may just be resuspending and resettling calcium carbonate over and over. My limewater reservoir had an inch thick layer of such mud on the bottom. Just stirring it up does not always add much alk and calcium to the water.

workhz · Nov 9, 2022

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Unless you measure the potency of the settled limewater, you may just be resuspending and resettling calcium carbonate over and over. My limewater reservoir had an inch thick layer of such mud on the bottom. Just stirring it up does not always add much alk and calcium to the water.

I'm sure the answer is out there but how to test potency? check ph or tds? or something else. That's what my quick search turned up

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 10, 2022

workhz said:
I'm sure the answer is out there but how to test potency? check ph or tds? or something else. That's what my quick search turned up

A conductivity (tds) meter that reads in the 10.2 mS/cm range is best.

pH can be a crude estimate, with a deviation of 0.3 pH units from true saturation being a 50% drop in potency.

You can also use alk or calcium measurements, but only if the water is 100% settled and clear (the above two methods do not require that).

I show such measurements here:

What Your Grandmother Never Told You About Lime by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

"Saturated limewater has a conductivity of about 10.3 mS/cm at 25ºC, and contains about 808 ppm of calcium and 40.8 meq/l of alkalinity."

AdrianSerge · Nov 16, 2022

Hello @Randy Holmes-Farley , sorry to bother you but I dont know many people who knows a lot about chemistry and kalk residues, The issue is I do not live in the US and was looking for cheaper options for purshasing Kalkwasser, I saw that in the US they use Missisipi Lime a lot but bringing a bag of it to my country (Panamá) would be more expensive because they charge me by weight.. so I was looking for some option of Lime in my country and found an Hidrated calcium oxide that states it has 95% purity and I was wondering if it would be OK to use it on my reef tank?
The data sheet is on spanish buy I think you can understand some of it by the percentages and chemical formulas. I hope you can help me.