Mr's Wages Pickling Lime -VS- commercial kalk

[fishbox]

I'm thinking of dosing kalk via a dripper to meet my tanks alk/ca demands. It's cheap and easy which allows me to focus more money and time to the upgrade I'm planning. My demands are low. My alk is usually around 6.5 - 7.5 and my ca is usually around 320 - 340.

So my question is whether to use Mr's Wages Pickling Lime or a commercial kalk like BRS Kalk? What are some pros and cons of each?

 

[fragit]

Years ago I had a 30gal softcoral tank and used Mrs wages exclusively with great results. In my current 120gal tank I use BRS two part. I’ve never tried commercial kale though. Mrs wages is cheap, one bag lasted like 4 years.

 

[Flippers4pups]

I've been using mrs.wages for quite sometime now in my ATO top off and is pretty cost effective. It's food grade calcium hydroxide with no other additives, so no worries there.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I used to use BRS calcium hydroxide (I have a huge jug left so I likely will be for some time). When that runs out though, I will be switching to Mrs. Wage's. Per Randy's article on kalkwasser, food-grade calcium hydroxide is more than sufficiently pure, and reefers were using Mrs. Wage's long before there was a "pharmaceutical" grade of kalkwasser available.

I personally had no issue with the old BRS kalkwasser. It was about the same price as Mrs. Wage's (probably a little cheaper) and might have even been higher quality. I'm not paying more than double for the new stuff though. That level of purity is not necessary. Especially when Mrs. Wage's has worked for many reefers over a long period of time.

 

[fishbox]

I used to use BRS calcium hydroxide (I have a huge jug left so I likely will be for some time). When that runs out though, I will be switching to Mrs. Wage's. Per Randy's article on kalkwasser, food-grade calcium hydroxide is more than sufficiently pure, and reefers were using Mrs. Wage's long before there was a "pharmaceutical" grade of kalkwasser available.

I personally had no issue with the old BRS kalkwasser. It was about the same price as Mrs. Wage's (probably a little cheaper) and might have even been higher quality. I'm not paying more than double for the new stuff though. That level of purity is not necessary. Especially when Mrs. Wage's has worked for many reefers over a long period of time.

Thanks for the link.

One thing that has me leaning towards pickling lime is the fact that my LFS does not carry commercial kalk. So the idea of being able to pick up the pickling lime locally in a pinch is attractive.

Crazy question.... What section of the grocery store should I be able to find it?

 

[paraletho]

Canning section, food containers, vacuum sealing, etc.

 

[paraletho]

At Walmart it is seasonal so get what you need in the spring

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You can also get it online at amazon and other places.

https://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Wages-Pi...&qid=1523719543&sr=8-3&keywords=pickling+lime

http://www.bulkfoods.com/cooking-ingredients/2689-pickling-lime.html

 

[easternreefer]

@Randy Holmes-Farley for our purposes does this ever go bad? kept sealed etc. I left the hobby years ago and knew that I would get back in. So I kept squirreled away a couple 1 lb containers of mrs wages.. I'm back in and wondering if there is any concern.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

@Randy Holmes-Farley for our purposes does this ever go bad? kept sealed etc. I left the hobby years ago and knew that I would get back in. So I kept squirreled away a couple 1 lb containers of mrs wages.. I'm back in and wondering if there is any concern.

It can become less potent as CO2 from the air reacts with it, making useless calcium carbonate. But you can still reach saturation (if that the goal) just be adding more and letting any residual solids settle out.