Another Kalkwasser thread

[Reefiez]

Hi everyone,

My mixed reef has been up and running for about a year now. I've gone through a large bag of BW's Kalkwasser. I've been pretty happy with the product, although I cannot attest to ALL of it's claims (the +2 part).

I would continue to use the product, but none is available (been looking for 3 months).

I am on the hunt for an alternative, and came across a calcium hydroxide product that claims to be 98% pure. I want to check whether the 2% impurity would have any negative impact on a reef tank.

From the label:
Calcium hydroxide: 97.98%
Calcium Carbonate: 0.55%
Magnesium Oxide MGO: 0.23%
Iron Oxide FE2O3: 0.03%
Aluminum Oxide Al2O3: 0.04%

I know calcium hydroxide is the good stuff.
I know calcium carbonate is alright (ie chalk, may even be beneficial to make my water clearer?)

My main concern is the magnesium oxide, the iron oxide and the aluminum oxide.

Will the magnesium oxide become available mg to my reef tank?
Will the iron oxide (i'm guessing it's just GFO) be able to be removed from my tank through skimmer and/or other types of filtration?
What on earth is aluminum oxide and will it nuke my tank?

would be great if anyone could chime in, thank you for your time!

 

[nereefpat]

Not sure where you're located. Can you get Mrs. Wages Picking Lime?

 

[bertoni]

Is this product food grade? If so, it's likely fine. Kalk has some self-purifying properties:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/5/chemistry

The magnesium all will precipitate. The same should be true of the aluminum, and likely the iron, but the iron is safe to add, in any case.

 

[outy]

Can you get Mrs. Wages Picking Lime?

I ebay mine

 

[bif24701]

I buy 5 gallon buckets from BRS, pharmacy grade and a value.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Daddi0]

I overspend and buy Brightwell Kalk+2. Not really sure if the stron. and mag. actually dissolve into anything that my corals can use, but all is growing good so why change?
Cheers! Mark

 

[Reefiez]

Thanks for all the replies!

I live in Hong Kong, and mrs wages and kalk+2 are pretty much out of the question. It will cost me 4 times as much as it costs for mrs wages to ship. Kalk+2 shipping is also more expensive than the product itself (1.8kg pack).

We have no home depot style DIY stores for bulk chemicals either, sadly.

But through more research, I have come across a local chemical company that might be able to sell pharm grade calcium hydroxide, I'm e-mailing them to see how that goes, fingers crossed.

And since I'm going down the road of the DIY supplements, I also found Randy's awesome DIY 2 part. The chemical company also lists having calcium dichloride hydrate, but i'm not sure what their purity is, and also bulk baking soda. I'll probably have to tweak the recipe a little if the purity is off from randy's dowflake.

This hobby is great! And I thought back in high school how useless chemistry was and how I'd never use those knowledge ever in my life.

 

[bertoni]

Reef chemistry is fun. I'm a computer scientist by trade, but I've learned chemistry through the hobby.

If you post information on your calcium hydroxide and calcium chloride sources, we might be able to help. Unfortunately, the companies usually don't give all the information we need, but we can at least get some idea of the suitability in some cases.