A tale of 2 Limes

[Ikaria]

We have 2 different types of lime at my workplace for our water treatment plant.

On the one bag it says drinking water safe, and "High Calcium Chemical Hydrated Lime".

The other type says it's water treatment quality and lists contents as "Calcium Hydroxide, and Magnesium Hydroxide"

They are both manufactured by Carmeuse and their web address is www.carmeusena.com.

I talked to our accountant, and he buys this stuff out of Alabama.

If this could be used in an aquarium, that would be great!

Feel free to put in your 2 cents, or even hijack the thread! LOL!

 

[mikeatjac]

I would pick bag one.

 

[reefkeeps]

I would pick up bag two and a PS3.... =)

 

[Ikaria]

LOL! I guess I should have posted a poll! These are 50 lb. bags, so now I have to carry 100 lbs of lime, and a PS3!

 

[reefkeeps]

I would ask in the Chemical thread, Randy knows all!

 

[robwsup]

See if you can get samples of bag two. Bag one is fine to use, same thing as kalkwasser, CaOH- (IIRC).

It would be nice to see the ratio of Ca to Mg in bag two.

Bring me a sample, I'll trade a frag.

 

[Freed]

Bag one seems like what you would want.

 

[robwsup]

Yeah, but if you could drip kalk, and add Mg with bag two, it would be great.

 

[grochmal]

Ikaria, did you ever ask Randy in the chemistry forum about this?
I just read his Lime article again (http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/index.php#14) to refresh my memory and it seems like you can't really get much magnesium out of limewater because of it's low solubility at a high pH.
Here's a quote from another article (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/may2003/chem.htm):
"Regardless of how much magnesium is present in the limewater to begin with, it will nearly all precipitate from solution, and clear limewater is not a source of magnesium for an aquarium."

 

[robwsup]

Doh, forgot about that. Looks like bag one is it.

 

[Ikaria]

Well, I'm not too worried about it then. I was just putting out the idea. What I was thinking is something along the lines of mixing a bag of magflake with a bag of dowflake, and dosing them together, like Rob said.

I did pick up some of the Calcium/Magnesium mix (which is not called lime after all) at work today, so if someone would like to check it out, let me know.

 

[robwsup]

If it's calcium hydroxide, it's lime. If you are going to mix Mg and Ca together, then you need calcium chloride.