Balls and Wages Pickling lime

[PelagicMagic]

I know alot of you use balls and wages pickling lime and have good results but I do not like the stuff. Maybe its because I am using it in a kalk reactor but these are the problems I have seen with the stuff

1) It does not remain in suspension like Seachem kalkwasser
2) it turns my reactor brown vs the cotton white from using seachem
3) it clogs my autotop off


that said I am going to stick with the seachem kalkwasser.

Comments?

[raycityboy1]

I was considering going to pickling lime b/c I seen it talked about so widely on RC. Glad I know some cons or possible promblems b/4 I make a decision.

[grochmal]

I'm confused about the "remain in suspension" issue.
Why do you want it to remain in suspension?
You're not dosing water with suspended particles in it are you?
Or is it simply to help with dissolving it?
I'm not too familiar with kalk reactors so maybe its a useful feature for them.

[PelagicMagic]

with the pickling lime I have to turn the reactor on more often to stir up the kalkwasser mix. It settles on the bottom very fast and the reactor chamber is clear with in 20 min and that means I am topping off with plain ro/di water. With the seachem kalkwasser the chamber on the reactor is cloudy all day.

[grochmal]

Don't you want the solids to settle out before dosing to the tank?
That's what you do when dripping, so I assumed a kalk reactor would be the same.

[PelagicMagic]

water will only absorb so much kalkwasser powder. Of course some kalk will settle on the bottom of the dripping jug, reactor chamber etc. with the pickling lime I noticed it wont mix well and I end up with a clear reactor with in 15 min. I think the seachem kalk is a better refined product

[MikeAtJax]

Why do you think that is? Seachem, balls and wages all meet the highest standards. I am currently using balls for dripping. I mix it up and in a few minutes the jug is clear. I don't us a kalk reactor, but do you not want the water column clear?

Maybe seachem manufacters their kalk finer. I have no idea why it turns brown in a kalk reactor but for dripping I would not waste the money on seachem kalk.

[grochmal]

Yeah, my understanding is that you if you put a bunch of powder in a container of water and stir it up it will dissolve as much as it can (saturation) and the rest will settle to the bottom.
The clear liquid is what you want to put into the tank.
The extra powder at the bottom could then be stirred up again with fresh water to dissolve more.
I would think having the powder settle out quicker would be more desirable.

[PelagicMagic]

for dripping that is true. With the kalk reactor I have an average of 4 gallons going through it a day. The water column is very clear because the pickling lime falls to the bottom quickly. Its hard to explain but I notice a difference. Also the clogging has stoped too