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Calcium for plants

Hi guys!
I have recently tried the garden lime / white vinegar thang, but although there was much fizzing for the first hour i am now left with a clear liquid on top, and undisolved lime on the bottom. I have tried stirring again and again, but no more fizzing seems to want to happen. I started this 3 days ago by the way. Is this a lengthy process, or should it have all disolved by now? Oh, and it still smells really vinegary too, which i don't think is right?
Any advice is appreciated!
Thanks

Oh, and the white vinegar i used didn't say 5% anywhere. But when i looked at the ingredients it just said "white vinegar" with nothing else added. Could this be a problem? If so, what exactly is the other 95%???!
See previous post... Acid used up in reaction. Need to add more acid to dissolve the rest of the lime. The other 95 percent is water. CH3COOH (aqueous)
 
See previous post... Acid used up in reaction. Need to add more acid to dissolve the rest of the lime. The other 95 percent is water. CH3COOH (aqueous)
cool.....will add more vinegar then!
The only reason i didn't already add more is that it still smelt REALLY vinegary....which made me think that vinegar (or acid) was still very much present..... but i guess i'll try and add more and see how it pans out...
 
cool.....will add more vinegar then!
The only reason i didn't already add more is that it still smelt REALLY vinegary....which made me think that vinegar (or acid) was still very much present..... but i guess i'll try and add more and see how it pans out...
What kind of vinegar did you use? Cider vinegar would probably still smell "vinegary" even after the acid was used up in the reaction.
 
What kind of vinegar did you use? Cider vinegar would probably still smell "vinegary" even after the acid was used up in the reaction.
Hi Stick!
OK, the white vinegar i bought just had "white vinegar" on the ingredients list, which i'm guessing just makes it 100% white vinegar!?
 
Hi Stick!
OK, the white vinegar i bought just had "white vinegar" on the ingredients list, which i'm guessing just makes it 100% white vinegar!?
white vinegar is acetic acid (CH3COOH) in solution with water (aqueous). Cider vinegar has other additional compounds from the apple that give it a bit of color and somewhat fruity smell and taste. You said you could still smell vinegar after the reaction had run its course, so I was wondering if you were using another kind of vinegar. Cheers
 
white vinegar is acetic acid (CH3COOH) in solution with water (aqueous). Cider vinegar has other additional compounds from the apple that give it a bit of color and somewhat fruity smell and taste. You said you could still smell vinegar after the reaction had run its course, so I was wondering if you were using another kind of vinegar. Cheers
okey dokey....so still add more then? or not?
 
nee

The other 95% of vinegar will be water.

If the fizzing has stop the reaction is over (or near over).

I see your problem - there is solid but you can still smell vinegar. So what's going on?

Vinegar has a pretty potent smell so the vinegar might only be around in trace amounts.

The white solid might also be calcium acetate formed in the reaction, rather than the added calcium carbonate. While calcium acetate is more soluble in water (34.7 g/100 mL) than calcium carbonate (0.15 g/100 mL) your solution might be saturated. According to Wikipedia calcium acetate has a solubility of 34.7 g/100 mL so if you've made more than 35 g per 100 ml of water it will begin to precipitate from solution.

To test the solid you could scoop some out and add fresh vinegar - if it fizzes then it contains calcium carbonate if not, then it will be calcium acetate.

The other problem will be as the vinegar and calcium carbonate are used in the reaction, the reaction will slow down. This is because the reagents will become more dilute and so will find it more difficult to find each other - you could try to heat the reaction up a little, maybe in an old sauce pan. Can't see how this can damage the calcium acetate or carbonate, and has the advantage that it will tend to boil off any remaining vinegar.

Excess vinegar seems to be a worse option than excess calcium carbonate.

I tried the reaction using antacid tablets, the problem is that these tablets contain sugar and I think kaolin (and spearmint flavour!). The problem with the kaolin is that I've had the same problem – a white precipitate and yet a slight whiff of spearmint/vinegar. I should have used sugar free tablets! I also saw in the local DIY shop that you can by pure calcium carbonate, next time I will used that!

Therefore:

(1) try heating the solution in a saucepan and still if it still has that fizz! At least this should get rid of the remaining vinegar.

(2) Also scoop out a little of the white solid and test it with some fresh neat vinegar to see if it still fizzes.

Hope that helps

CH

kishke - not sure what is going on with your eggshells, but becareful with that glacial acetic acid!!
 
kishke - not sure what is going on with your eggshells, but becareful with that glacial acetic acid!!

That glacial acetic acid is long gone by now, and dont worry I used gloves ^^. Next time I dissolve egg shells I'll try doing it with a lot of vingear and adding shells slowly until it stops fizzing.
You have idea why some people say to cook the shells until they are black?
 
I got some of this on the weekend (cal/mag) instructions said nothing about vinegar though?

Was on $7.00 for a 5kg bag, i used half the bag already.

dolomite.jpg
 
kishke - gloves are good, but make sure you look after your eyes!!!!!! Personally, I'd steer clear of the glacial acetic acid, it a little too powerful for what you need!

Maybe the idea of turning egg shells black is to burn off any proteins etc from the eggs?


Adding excess vinegar could be a good idea, you just need to get rid of it in the end. Maybe when the fizzing slows simmer it for a few hours on a low heat until the reaction is over and all the acetic acid boils off, topping up with water now and again if the level of water drops too low!

Mezo - what's in it?
 
kishke - gloves are good, but make sure you look after your eyes!!!!!! Personally, I'd steer clear of the glacial acetic acid, it a little too powerful for what you need!

Maybe the idea of turning egg shells black is to burn off any proteins etc from the eggs?


Adding excess vinegar could be a good idea, you just need to get rid of it in the end. Maybe when the fizzing slows simmer it for a few hours on a low heat until the reaction is over and all the acetic acid boils off, topping up with water now and again if the level of water drops too low!

I wasn't that muxh aroung 50 ml. Anyway what im doing with my current batch is I added water so all the sediment will dissolve and im slowly evaporating all the liquid in the stun to get solid clacium acetate which eventually will be crush and into powder and added to water. I think this should get rid of the excess acetate if it wasn't all used in the reaction.
 
Just looked up dolomite on the internet - seems to contain 'calcium magnesium carbonate' (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolomite)

Therefore, you will be adding one magnesium to every calcium. Provided that you want magnesium as well as calcium then that should be fine.

Wikipedia states that dolomite is "Poorly soluble in dilute HCl unless powdered.".

This means that it will not be very water soluble! Dolomite will therefore only dissolve very slowly, and only when there is some form of acid around - either in the soil or when there is some acid in the rain water. If you want calcium fast, dolomite is probably not what you are after!

I wasn't that muxh aroung 50 ml. Anyway what im doing with my current batch is I added water so all the sediment will dissolve and im slowly evaporating all the liquid in the stun to get solid clacium acetate which eventually will be crush and into powder and added to water. I think this should get rid of the excess acetate if it wasn't all used in the reaction.

Sounds like a good plan - in the best case scenario you will get 100% calcium acetate and no acid residue, and the worse case scenario will be that you will have some calcium carbonate left in your calcium acetate! That is no problem, as the remaining calcium carbonate will only release calcium slowly, although will make your soil a little more basic. If you want to make sure that you have no acetic acid left you could let it go dry in the sun, add water, let it go dry again, repeat if you want till all the vinegar wiff gas gone!

I presume 'stun' was meant to be 'sun' :O)
 
Says 14% Calcium & 8% Magnesium, don't have a clue what the rest is then?

It does say Dolomite is slow acting & should be put in the ground 3-4 weeks before planting.

That`s fine with me, no big shock to them at least.

Mezo.
 
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Thats my batch until the next time:
3fc5fe451e23e3708643951aeb28535d606cd9588fdf0c81341953a9ee5aaf096g.jpg

It may look like somthing else :X but it's calcium acetate.
Question is anyone knows how should I dilute it and should I water my plants with it or spray it over them?
 
Nice work!

I'd be tempted to follow the instruction is foli-cal, i.e.: http://www.montereyl...foli_cal_02.pdf

Foli-cal concentrate says it has 10% Calcium (mass ratio of about 40). Therefore, this equates to 10g of 'calcium' in 100 ml of water.

Since you have 'calcium acetate' (mass ratio of about 158), this would equate to about 39.5 grams in 100 mls in the foli-cal concentrate.

Foli-cal then states that the concentrate should be diluted to 3 fluid ounce (about 89 mls) in 2 gallons (about 7500 ml).

Therefore, I think you need about 4.6 grams of calcium acetate per litre of water.

However, caution suggest ramping up the concentration up gradually!!!!

Hope that helps for what is worth.

The above link to the foli-cal pdf gives the rest of the instructions!

Here are my numbers if anyone wants to give them the once over:


Foli-cal concentrate: Mass (grams) Volume of water (ml) calcium' (grams) 10.0 100 Calcium Acetate (grams) 39.5 100 Dilution instructions of Foli-cal: Volume of Concentrate Diluted into gallons Fluid ounces 3.0 2.0 Equates to mls: 88.7 7570.8 Dilution equates to: Volume of water (ml) Calcium acetate (grams) 35.1 7570.8 Calcium acetate (grams) 4.6 1000.0


:crazy: Looks like the above "table" did not come out, so please ignore it!
 
Thanks I'll check all your info once im done(or at least take a break) from all this damn uni stuff. How much would 4.6 grams be related to a teaspoon?
 
Good question - a tea spoon would be about right-ish, but will depend on how 'fluffy' your powder is.

Again, you might want to gradually ramp it up, just to be on the safe side. Therefore maybe add a quarter of a teaspoon to start with??
 
I always rather start lower than higher, the plants still get what they like. I will probably test it on 1 plant first to make sure I wont kill the few I got.
 
Well i only sprinkled that Dolomite stuff on two days ago & my leaves are already going green again, well happy. :party:

And no more leaf drop, im amazed how fast it worked, no a slight change in color a huge change.

Mezo.
 
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