Calcium

[Dominator]

I know most people use calcium carbonate or bicarb soda to adjust their PH. I have read bicarb is not ideal but will work. My wife uses DCP (Dicalcium Phosphate) for her horses and thus can be bought cheap from a feed store. Just wondering if anyone knows if this would work?

You can get Calcium Carbonate from feed stores too but my local store only supplies it in a 20kg bag. :wtf: :scared-eek:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicalcium_phosphate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_carbonate

[db1979]

Calcium phosphate will work as a buffer which will keep pH in check in a wash. Not sure about adjusting pH with it (whether it will decrease or increase) but it may be beneficial to use in a wash just be cautious to not use too much as calcium solubility decreases with increasing temperature (like in a boiler) and so you don't want to have the added hassle of removing lime scale from inside your boiler particularly if it's a standard keg with 2" opening. Phosphate ion does do a good job of keeping calcium dissolved but it could be more pain than its worth.

[Sam.]

I'm not a scientiest, or am I? :laughing-rolling:

But whatever you use to adjust your PH make sure that its all it is doing. ie you don't want to be adding any extra shit to your wash that "may" come through.

For example great to use DAP in your wash but if you went and bought some fertiliser from the feed shop that has DAP in it, what the fuck else is in there?

Just a thought :think:

[db1979]

Oops, I just realised that phosphate is actually a really bad ion to have with calcium for solubility, I was thinking of nitrate ion. After all our bones are essentially calcium phosphate (with other stuff) and they don't dissolve. So no, I wouldn't put calcium phosphate in your wash unless you want to be cleaning lime scale from it. I did research once into the mineral that make up our bones and to make it I mixed a salt of calcium with a salt of phosphate and hey presto a salt of calcium phosphate precipitates to make the mineral in bones. Alcohol may go some way to making the calcium soluble but what happens then when your ethanol in you wash is almost all boiled off... And since calcium has a lower solubility at higher temperature (most other substances are the opposite), you get solid calcium in the form of lime scale. Use some other nutrient instead.

[Dominator]

No worries. Thanks for that mate.