Calculations to get Right kH and gH

[AquaticShrimpNoob]

Hi Everyone,

 

I have some calculations to get proper water chemistry in my remineralized RO water for water change. I decided to share this after finding this in my file while cleaning. Hopefully, this will be useful to someone. The kH calculation might be a bit weird. I make kH solution using a 20 fl oz soda bottle then add that to my 5 gallon RO water.

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[Revaria]

Oh wow this is quite cool, it would have been useful when I first started. My only critics would be that although weight is more accurate than scoops I don't think many of us will use a balance to measure the weight of salty shrimp. 

[nicpapa]

On 12/21/2018 at 8:07 AM, AquaticShrimpNoob said:

Hi Everyone,

 

I have some calculations to get proper water chemistry in my remineralized RO water for water change. I decided to share this after finding this in my file while cleaning. Hopefully, this will be useful to someone. The kH calculation might be a bit weird. I make kH solution using a 20 fl oz soda bottle then add that to my 5 gallon RO water.

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Hi , its not always the same, salty bee get easy of hymidity, and then in need diferent dosage.

Tds meter is the only way .

[AquaticShrimpNoob]

@Revaria I did not use any balance in this calculations. The weight of the sodium bicarbonate was based on few calculations (e.g. density of dry sodium bicarbonate, etc). You can use this reference for convenience if you want: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3770998/

The Salty Bee GH+ weight is based on the given weight on their website: http://www.saltyshrimp.de/english/beesalt_bee_shrimp_mineral_gh_plus.html

 

@nicpapa Good point! These calculations are based on dry content basis. Oh, that's easy problem to fix. You can place moisture-absorber pack inside your container. This should solve that issue. Honestly, I do not think that you will need this unless you are exposing your salts in a humid environment. Another way to fix your salt's mass balance is to heat up your salt. Honestly, this is just salt (BTW, I am not talking about table salt. I am using science definition of salt). Heat it up, place it in a clean dry container, and put a desiccant or silica moisture-absorber. You just fix the problem.

[nicpapa]

I dont know what is the hymidity where are you live.

But here goes 85-90% , i use moisture-absorber pack  but it dont help...

Think that i just open , use it and close it in less than 1min when i make the water and it still absorve water.

I have 1 kg from salty shrimp gh+ and i put it in smaller bottle 100gr  just  not affect the humidity all the packet.

I forget it open one night and the next morning it was water.

Why to heat the salt?

I just add salt untli i get my prefered tds...:)

[AquaticShrimpNoob]

Hi @nicpapa

 

That humidity is indeed high. I do think that moisture-absorber will not help much in this case. Heating the salts is the only way to remove the water in this case. BTW, there are other ways to remove the water, but they are beyond our capability and beyond accessible (e.g. industrial processes). By heating up the salts, you will evaporate out the water molecules bonded with the salts. If you heat up the salts >100 Celsius, you should be able to evaporate the water (water's boiling point is 100 Celsius). However, remember that Salty Bee is a mixture of different salts. Some of these salts may have melting point below 100 Celsius. If that is the case, you will form big chucks of salts that maybe problematic and you would have to crush them. That would be inconvenient.

 

You can continue what you have been doing if that works really well. I do, however, can offer you something if you want. You can do an experiment. Here is the process:

1.) Get a sample of your Salty Bee GH+ with known mass (e.g. 100 g)

2.) Heat that sample.

3.) Measure the mass difference (e.g. 10 g)

4.) Get the ratio of final mass to initial mass (e.g. 90/100 = 0.90)

5.) Follow the calculation below:

 

 

I suggest to do this experiment multiple times at different days to see if there is a big difference. You don't have to account the moisture in your salt in the calculation above because the water amount in the salt is negligible compare to 5 gallon water. Once you know the amount of scoop you need per RO water, you will not have to spend so much time guessing until you get your desired gH. This will save your time. Let me know if it works.

 

[Shrimpmogel]

Very helpful...Thank you !

[barvinok]

On 12/20/2018 at 10:07 PM, AquaticShrimpNoob said:

Hi Everyone,

 

I have some calculations to get proper water chemistry in my remineralized RO water for water change. I decided to share this after finding this in my file while cleaning. Hopefully, this will be useful to someone. The kH calculation might be a bit weird. I make kH solution using a 20 fl oz soda bottle then add that to my 5 gallon RO water.

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

I believe you have a typo 

9g ss/40L water=9dgH.   3g ss/40L=3dgH

[AquaticShrimpNoob]

Thank you for pointing that out. Here is a more comprehensive step-by-step calculations.