Lime saturated vinegar

[boxed_reef]

I want to start carbon dosing to reduce nitrates, and i’ve also considered supplementing my 2 part dosing with kalkwasser... so lime saturated vinegar seems to be a perfect solution for both.
Is there some sort of calculator for alk/cal in fully saturated vinegar dosing amounts? I’m currently dosing 60ml of BRS 2 part a day on my 120 gallon tank. Anything else to take into consideration when using lime saturated vinegar?

 

[Tmmste]

I want to start carbon dosing to reduce nitrates, and i’ve also considered supplementing my 2 part dosing with kalkwasser... so lime saturated vinegar seems to be a perfect solution for both.
Is there some sort of calculator for alk/cal in fully saturated vinegar dosing amounts? I’m currently dosing 60ml of BRS 2 part a day on my 120 gallon tank. Anything else to take into consideration when using lime saturated vinegar?

Fully saturated is, I believe, 70ml vinegar per teaspoon (how many grams this is, I do not know) of calciumhydroxide.. this turns it into calciumacetate (if I am not mistaken)... @Randy Holmes-Farley will know this for sure

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Saturation will depend on the ratio of the two used.

What I did for manual vinegar dosing is take straight vinegar and saturate it with calcium hydroxide. That prevents the pH drop on addition and adds a small amount of calcium and alk too. If you dilute that with more fresh water, you will dose more.

 

[boxed_reef]

so i shouldn’t have to adjust my 2 part dosing much?

 

[piranhaman00]

Bump.

I want to saturate vinegar with calcium hydroxide, currently dosing 110mls vinegar in 150 gal system. No effect on nitrates yet so this will need to be bumped up more. What will 110mls of saturated vinegar have on alk in this system?

My alk demand is not that high

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Bump.

I want to saturate vinegar with calcium hydroxide, currently dosing 110mls vinegar in 150 gal system. No effect on nitrates yet so this will need to be bumped up more. What will 110mls of saturated vinegar have on alk in this system?

My alk demand is not that high

Neutralizing Vinegar for more stable pH

I'm currently dosing 40ml of vinegar to a 80 gallon total volume system. This depresses pH significantly in my system when added all at once. I read about adding kalk to vinegar to stabilize the pH of the solution but "strange" things happen when I do this. I used a pH probe to aim for a pH of...

www.reef2reef.com

from the earlier post, you can scale it to your specifics.



Vinegar is 5% acetic acid.

So 100 mL contains 5 grams (83.3 mmoles) which means it adds 83.3 meq of alkalinity.

Thus adding 100 mL of lime-saturated vinegar to 100 liters of aquarium water (a very high dose) will add 83.3 meq/100 L = 0.83 meq/L or 2.3 dKH.

The amount of alk coming from 100 mL of limewater (dissolved calcium hydroxide) that is also present is very small.

 

[piranhaman00]

Neutralizing Vinegar for more stable pH

I'm currently dosing 40ml of vinegar to a 80 gallon total volume system. This depresses pH significantly in my system when added all at once. I read about adding kalk to vinegar to stabilize the pH of the solution but "strange" things happen when I do this. I used a pH probe to aim for a pH of...

www.reef2reef.com

from the earlier post, you can scale it to your specifics.



Vinegar is 5% acetic acid.

So 100 mL contains 5 grams (83.3 mmoles) which means it adds 83.3 meq of alkalinity.

Thus adding 100 mL of lime-saturated vinegar to 100 liters of aquarium water (a very high dose) will add 83.3 meq/100 L = 0.83 meq/L or 2.3 dKH.

The amount of alk coming from 100 mL of limewater (dissolved calcium hydroxide) that is also present is very small.

So vinegar saturated in lime has an alkalinity of 2271 dkh approx?

You wrote somewhere that 50mLs will raise 100 gallons by 0.3dkh and I calculated from there

 

[SantaMonica]

Good to refresh my memory, that the reason for the vinegar is to stop the pH drop. Are there any other changes of importance to corals?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So vinegar saturated in lime has an alkalinity of 2271 dkh approx?

You wrote somewhere that 50mLs will raise 100 gallons by 0.3dkh and I calculated from there

I get 2332 dKH from my post above, so yes.

 

[piranhaman00]

Good to refresh my memory, that the reason for the vinegar is to stop the pH drop. Are there any other changes of importance to corals?

Im attempting it to vinegar dose without pH drop, also can saturate more lime in vinegar thn water

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Good to refresh my memory, that the reason for the vinegar is to stop the pH drop. Are there any other changes of importance to corals?

I used it when manually dosing vinegar so I could do once a day dosing of high doses with no pH drop.

Aside from pH and alk effects, corals do not know how you dosed what they see, which is only the acetate form.

 

[fryman]

I've been super-saturating kalk in vinegar and dosing this for awhile in one of my tanks. IIRC I used 10Tbs kalk in 500ml vinegar. I have to shake the bottle up each day since kalk settles out at the bottom. It's like a milky slurry. pH spikes a bit so I only use 5ml.

Nitrate bottomed out for me so I might have to switch.

 

[piranhaman00]

I've been super-saturating kalk in vinegar and dosing this for awhile in one of my tanks. IIRC I used 10Tbs kalk in 500ml vinegar. I have to shake the bottle up each day since kalk settles out at the bottom. It's like a milky slurry. pH spikes a bit so I only use 5ml.

Nitrate bottomed out for me so I might have to switch.

That is not how saturating works haha, after you mix it up once, pour off the clear liquid and dose that, that is the saturated solution.

If you are mixing it up before dosing you are adding saturated solution plus residual powder out of suspension, probably not a problem but just saying

 

[fryman]

That is not how saturating works haha, after you mix it up once, pour off the clear liquid and dose that, that is the saturated solution.

If you are mixing it up before dosing you are adding saturated solution plus residual powder out of suspension, probably not a problem but just saying

I understand that, but need more alk/ca than saturated vinegar would provide thus I am adding more than would dissolve.

It's similar to kalk slurry method but I don't use a doser. It's been working fine, I maintain alk @ 9dkh this way. I do have an issue with perpetually low nitrate, I expect from the vinegar carbon-dosing. I should maybe use something like all-for-reef but am kind of a cheap-skate.