DIY Alkatronic reagent

[kenchilada]

Good job. Everyone be very careful handling muriatic if you try this. The fumes are nasty and it’s not fun if it splashes on you either.

 

[SimbaAnto]

I finally made the leap to using muriatic acid. I had been dreading doing the cut over. I had calculated the required dilution ratio a few years ago (https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-alkatronic-reagent.639360/post-11029448), but had been hesitant to actually make the change. The reason for my hesitation is that I had zeroed in on the dilution factor using a slightly odd technique using a Hanna checker and a stale off the shelf alkalinity standard and was not too confident that I had not messed it up. This would be the first time I actually mixed up any reagent using the calculated ratio.

The ratio that I calculated is 99:1. So 10 ml of muriatic in 1000 ml of RODI should give the same as the 0.1N reagent I had been purchasing through Amazon (before Amazon cut Canada off from this product).

I planned to mix it in a 1L volumetric flask, and to use a 10 ml pipette to measure the muriatic acid. I only have 2 pipettes, a 1000 ul and a 10,000 ul, and I don't use the 10,000 ul (10 ml) one very often, so I decided to test it's accuracy. I set it to 10 ml and pulled some RODI in and expelled it into a 10 ml volumetric flask. The flask overflowed. Hmm, so one of them was off. I figured it was the pipette, so I started fiddling with the setting on the pipette until I arrived at a setting of 9.88 ml to fill the 10 ml volumetric flask to the etched line on it's neck.

I filled the 1 L volumtric flask half full with RODI and pipetted (what I hoped would be) 10 ml of muriatic acid into it. Then I filled the rest of the needed RODI into the 1 L flask and set about doing the normal 4:1 dillution ( 1 L RODI, 250 ml 0.1N) using the newly created 0.1N base reagent.

I added those 2 flasks into my Alkatronic reservoir. There was still about 1/2" of old reagent in the reservoir that was made with the off the shelf 0.1N reagent.

The moment of truth was here. How far off would the reading be? Would it be too far off to be usable? I was already thinking in my head that if it was too far out of whack, I may need to dump the newly mixed 0.1N base reagent and start tweaking the 10 ml of muriatic acid to test other ratios ...

I requested an Extra Measurment from the Alkatroninc and crossed my fingers.

Success, or what I consider success! The first measurement was only - 0.5 dKH off from the latest measurment using the off the shelf 0.1N reagent base (2024-11-23 14:00). I did a second extra meaurement to make sure the tubing only contained reagent based on the muriatic and the reading dropped to a spread of - 0.67 dKH. I can live with that.

The readings after the cut over in the above graph show my alkalinity control process start to adjust the flow rate on my CaRx to get the reading back to my target reading of 10 dKH. In case you were wondering why about the increase over the days after the cut over.

For the next time, I plan to use a 100 ml volumetric flask for the muriatic, and mix it into 10 L of RODI. This will give me 10 L of 0.1N reagent and no requirement to buy the OEM 0.1N reagent ever. I had dropped my testing to every 6 hours as I was conserving reagent, but now I can go back to my prefered test every 3 hours again.

I consider the switch over to using the 10N muriatic acid a success. I don't know what I was worried about!

Dennis

From a price point, i felt HCL is a better one and also its right on spot.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Good job. Everyone be very careful handling muriatic if you try this. The fumes are nasty and it’s not fun if it splashes on you either.

Yes, I should have mentioned that in my post. I did the work on my (glass topped) stove with the overhead vent turned on to suck the fumes away from me. I also worked with nitrile gloves and protective eye wear on.

As soon as you pour some muriatic acid out of the container, it starts to hiss as it reacts with the water vapour in the air. Definitely nasty stuff.

Dennis

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes, I should have mentioned that in my post. I did the work on my (glass topped) stove with the overhead vent turned on to suck the fumes away from me. I also worked with nitrile gloves and protective eye wear on.

As soon as you pour some muriatic acid out of the container, it starts to hiss as it reacts with the water vapour in the air. Definitely nasty stuff.

Dennis

You hear an audible sound?

 

[Dennis Cartier]

You hear an audible sound?

I just checked. It sizzles and hisses, but only when poured into a recently cleaned (and dried) beaker. I am guessing that even though I dry the beaker with a paper towel, there is still enough remnants on the surface to react with the muriatic acid.