Calcium Bleedin' Sulphate

[Vale!]

Right, I'll put you out of your misery!

When ordering the salts for this new recipe I thought it would be neat to have a box of the salts just for the purpose. I already had magnesium sulphate and sodium bicarbonate but trotted off to Amazon to order more for my 'special' box, plus some other stuff. There I was, stabbing away at the 'buy' button without a care in the world. This is one of the items that I bought ...



You may use the same words to describe me as before but now you're quite entitled to preface them with "*******" or "*********" or even "stupid ******* ****". My error didn't register with me even as I was spooning the stuff out! So ...


The major ingredient (assuming they're listed like that on the packet) is mono calcium phosphate - the acidic component of this baking powder. I tested it for phosphate by dissolving 0.2g in 1litre of RO/DI and got a reading off-scale (max readable is 2.5mg/l) even at x2 dilution.

This morning I tested the tank through increasing dilutions until I got a reading. The successful one was got by diluting some tankwater 50/50 with RO and then testing a sample of that at 10x dilution. The device read 2.50mg/l exactly but wasn't flashing, so it meant what it said! Therefore I've got around 50mg/l of phosphate in the 68.4 litres that the tank is holding, a total of around 1.71 grams. Is my maths vaguely correct?

I'll get it out via a combination of water-changes (with proper sodium bicarbonate!) and phosphate-removing resin. I have a box of 6 Fluval 301/307 401/407 phosphate-guzzling pads and I've put four of them in the filtration compartment. I'll hold off any water-changes until tomorrow and see if the pads make any difference at all over 24 hours.

I wonder if the cycle will restart at some point as the phosphate loading decreases, or have I completely discumknockerated the munchers? We shall see.

Incidentally, I've had one or two other adventures with this tank over the past few weeks. Should I post them up in a separate thread?

[fr499y]

Go for it! Always a worthy read of the mad scientists experiments

[plankton]

I thought you may have added the wrong thing during your extensive combinations, but wasn't 100% what....it makes complete sense now.

I should imagine the "munchers" have only gone dormant, so should should recover.....at least you didn't use chlorine.....

[Vale!]

OK, M - I'll try to work something up. I suppose it better be in 'Tank Logs' even though there'll be sciencey bits?

No - I didn't use 'free' chlorine but I did subject them to a huge meal of chloramine at one stage!

[fr499y]

Either that or the science section?

[Vale!]

Well I've started off in Tank Logs. If it gets too much we can always move it to a remote corner of the forum where it won't startle anyone, I suppose.

[fr499y]

I’m sure it’ll be fine there

[Vale!]

I should imagine the "munchers" have only gone dormant, so should should recover...

Yes - you were right. It was all very odd. Now that I've got a thread in 'Tank Logs' further elucidation belongs there, I think, in the fullness of time!

[Vale!]

To bastardise an advertisement of Gawd knows how long ago ... Mum's Gone To Sainsbury's!


The significance of this may escape you. Understandably so.

Thing is, Sainsbury's still do 6-pint milk cartons - unlike Tesco who seem to have given up on them. Mrs. V! returned triumphantly from a shopping trip brandishing one. With now two such cartons and with considerable skill recently developed in getting calcium bleedin' sulphate to dissolve, and with masses of Brownie points, I can churn out Sheba 4 water at a prodigious rate. Saudi desalination programmes? Hah! Mere amateurs in the water-treatment game.

I earned the Brownie points by organising the chaos that had developed over several years in the freezer. All is now in labelled boxes and space has magically appeared into which 6-pint milk cartons may be inserted.

I've learned that calcium bleedin' sulphate doesn't care if it's in a freezing environment or a thawing one ; just so long as there's a big hunk of ice around it'll have dissolved (aided by occasional shaking) by the time it's thawed completely. So the strategy is to dump it in the freezer and leave it alone until its pretty much frozen. Take it out and, over the course of a few hours and a few shaking episodes, voi bleedin' la!

You may scoff but these are matters of great import.

Anyway, tomorrow afternoon I should have built enough water for Sheba 4 to do a near enough 100% water-change.


And in case you're wondering - yes - Mrs. V! did indeed return with a generous cargo of Guinness.

[fr499y]

Hmmm Guinness, hopefully not the 0.0 variety!