Re: [Killietalk] What's in my water

["Koran, David HQ02" <David_Koran at hq02.usace.army.mil>]

Edd,

I maintain two water chemistries for the fish room, one is hard and the other
soft because my tap water is very soft, i.e. 50-100 ppm.  The hard water
chemistry is not all that hard, about 250-300 ppm, and I make up a salt mix
to accomplish that.  The hard water chemistry mimics that of the Point of
Rocks Spring in Ash Meadows and the salt mix is based on what I needed to add
to my own water to get there.  I had both waters analyzed for gross and trace
elements over 10 years ago.

The salt mix is of 4 major components and 2 minor ones, all but one are
readily available.  You can determine your own Ca+Mg amount by doing the
hardness test with those three solution kits.  That will give you the
combined concentration in ppm.  For a good approximation you can assume the
calcium concentration is about twice that of the magnesium and for all
practical purposes that is good enough.  You want to avoid chloride if you
can but it is difficult to find alkaline metal salts in readily available
relatively pure form conveniently and cheaply.  Being too lazy right now to
look it up get a breakdown of ocean chemical consistency.  The chemicals I
use are synthetic sea salt (Instant Ocean), anhydrous calcium chloride
(Prestone Driveway Heat), sodium bicarbonate (Arm & Hammer), potassium
chloride (salt substitute or potassium chloride water softener pellets - 40#
bag from Sears - lifetime supply) and an iodide supplement (Kent Marine).
The hard to find item is magnesium chloride.  I use a product called MAG
which is flaked magnesium chloride produced by the Dead Sea Saltworks.  It is
found in many snow removal outfits where not harming plants or concrete is
important.  Unfortunately for most it comes in 80 pound bags, is high
hydroscopic and quickly absorbs water when exposed to the air.

To 18 gallons of water (i.e., a Rough Tote Rubbermaid Tub) I add 9.6 of
magnesium chloride (the MAG is actually a hydrated crystal, i.e. 6 molecules
of water in the crystal), 6.5 grams of the anhydrous calcium chloride, 1.5
grams of potassium chloride and then 2 ml of the iodide supplement (will
prevent goiter somewhat--note the iodide supplement is a potassium iodide
stock!).  I usually have these as an aqueous stock solution and add in a 50
ml portion (you can't concentrate it much more than this or the salts won't
dissolve).  Separately I add about 16.3 grams of instant ocean (lots of
sodium here but this is where you get your trace elements).  Finally I add 22
grams of sodium bicarbonate.  This is about my upper limit, more bicarbonate
in the water I get some calcium carbonate precipitate initially which is a
bugger to redissolve.  Obviously combining the bicarb in with the other salts
in a stock solution produces synthetic limestone deposits!

Yeah, maybe it is easier to buy RO salts but not when you produce several
thousand gallons of synthetic hard water each year, it is a lot cheaper this
way.  Anyway, you can calculate how much you need to get to your desired
water chemistry but figure you should only provide half or less of your
divalent metal ions from synthetic sea salt.  I avoid Epsom salts, keep the
sulfate out of the mix even though that seems like to easy way to add
magnesium.

Dave K 

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