[cowman17]

So years ago research was published that showed cattle recovered better from stressful situations if you let them drink an electrolyte solution rather than just water. Nobody has even implemented this because there just isn't a feasible or economical way to create the 1,000's of liters of water a large number of cattle drink in a day. I want to take a shot at accomplishing it.

The idea solution would be 0.09 grams Na/L, 0.12 grams Cl/L and 0.09 grams K/L and 0.02 grams Mg.

On paper using a mainly sodium bicarbonate mixture, with some NaCl and Potassium bicarbonate I get about 200 times more sodium than I need. Which isn't good. What i'm hoping to accomplish is to be able to say "well, I have 300 head of cattle here, they will drink X Liters of water so I need Y kilograms of the salt mixture" Take the salt mixture, measure the correct amount out, then place it in a PVC pipe with a few holes drilled in it & throw it in the water tank. It dissociates to roughly the correct amount of Na, Cl, K, and Mg cattle recover better, I'm happy they are healthier & the world is a better place.

FYI- the cattle will be drinking from several different types of automatic water tanks that hold anywhere form 200 to 500 Liters. When they start to drink the valve opens automatically releasing more water

My goal is to formulate a mixture that gets me as close as I can to the ideal mixture.

So questions-
Using well water not distilled water, so varying levels of impurities in it, how will that impact solubility? A little, a lot?

Not using an agitator so how much will that impact max solubility and rate of dissociation

What can I do to reduce the solubility of the salts? Changing the temp isn't an option. Could I use glucose, sucrose, and some minerals (Zn, & Cu) to increase the number of total dissolved solids and thus reduce the concentration of the Na, Cl, K and Mg ions?

Maybe I should be looking at different compounds?

What type of equipment should I buy to accurately test the levels of Na, Cl, K, and Mg to the 100th of a g/L?

[Arkcon]

This shouldn't be too hard for us to work with.  There are some details, and therein lies the devil, as we say ...

So years ago research was published that showed cattle recovered better from stressful situations if you let them drink an electrolyte solution rather than just water.

Cool idea.  Humans do that too.  I'm unsure if the cattle will accept the logic.  But lets all play along.  Consider talking to a vet who wants to chat with you on the topic after we're all done.

Nobody has even implemented this because there just isn't a feasible or economical way to create the 1,000's of liters of water a large number of cattle drink in a day.

That seems weird.  Maybe its just to difficult a problem.  Anyway ...

I want to take a shot at accomplishing it.

We're here to help.

The idea solution would be 0.09 grams Na/L, 0.12 grams Cl/L and 0.09 grams K/L and 0.02 grams Mg.

That sounds like a good recipe.  If your quote resource says its so, we can work with it.

On paper using a mainly sodium bicarbonate mixture, with some NaCl and Potassium bicarbonate I get about 200 times more sodium than I need.

OK.  Why did that happen.  If you got exactly 200x, why not use exactly 200x less salts, or 200x more water?  Why sodium bicarbonate?  Some other reason you haven't mentioned?

Will you show us your math?  How many grams NaCl, etc.  We do require students to show their work on this forum.

Which isn't good. What i'm hoping to accomplish is to be able to say "well, I have 300 head of cattle here, they will drink X Liters of water so I need Y kilograms of the salt mixture"

Or less than y kilos, depending on your math.

Take the salt mixture, measure the correct amount out, then place it in a PVC pipe with a few holes drilled in it & throw it in the water tank.

Hrm.  This ease of end use may be detrimental to the plan at this stage.

It dissociates to roughly the correct amount of Na, Cl, K, and Mg

You mean dissolves, then dissociates into the ions, ok.  Why do we want to be "rough" about it?

cattle recover better, I'm happy they are healthier & the world is a better place.

Yay.

FYI- the cattle will be drinking from several different types of automatic water tanks that hold anywhere form 200 to 500 Liters. When they start to drink the valve opens automatically releasing more water

I see why you want to formulate a PVC-wrapped "pill" for water addition.  But you've making assumptions about dissolving and mixing that aren't good, and we that can't just ignore.

My goal is to formulate a mixture that gets me as close as I can to the ideal mixture.

Again, the "About" can mean anything.  It just makes our problems all the more difficult.

So questions-
Using well water not distilled water, so varying levels of impurities in it, how will that impact solubility? A little, a lot?

Generally not at the levels potable water are likely to be at.  But when making a nutrient solution, as you are, its you're responsibility to test the input water and adapt your recipe.

Not using an agitator so how much will that impact max solubility and rate of dissociation

Lots.  And badly.  Not really worth calculating, to the g/L level of hundreds of liters if we can't control mixing.

What can I do to reduce the solubility of the salts?

This is a non sequitor. Unless you've decided to gild the lily, and ask for time release, on top of the PVC pill.  We shouldn't gild lilies, especially when we don't even have a lily to start with.

Changing the temp isn't an option.

Bummer.  But not surprising, really.  But lets not rule things out.  Also why?

Could I use glucose, sucrose,

That should probably be avoided no matter what, given the biology of cattle.  Real veterinary knowledge is needed here.

and some minerals (Zn, & Cu)

Even more risky, greater amounts of these can have varying amounts of toxicity.  Still not clear why you want to do this.

to increase the number of total dissolved solids and thus reduce the concentration of the Na, Cl, K and Mg ions?

Urm.  No.  This isn't correct at all.  You want to add even more random ions, so the percentage-wise amount in your tablet is less?  But that puts even more salts in the water total.  That's just incorrect.

Maybe I should be looking at different compounds?

Yes.  You selected bicarbonate above, are you also adding some acid, to make a fizzy tablet?  Was that the plan?

What type of equipment should I buy to accurately test the levels of Na, Cl, K, and Mg to the 100th of a g/L?

That is a tricky problem in its own right.  But your plan isn't really that close.

[Arkcon]

Also, please trouble yourself to read our Forum Rules{click}.  You already accepted the rules when you signed up for our forum, and you have to follow them, whether you agree with them or not, or even if you're unaware of them.  A "wall of text" posting, such as this one often contain hidden errors, and this posting of yours definitely counts.

[Borek]

Quick sanity check:

Na+	0.09 g/L	3.9e-3 M
K+	0.09 g/L	2.3e-3 M
Mg2+	0.02 g/L	0.8e-3 M
Cl-	0.12 g/L	3.4e-3 M

There is not enough Cl^-, so you will need another counterion. Carbonate (or bicarbonate) sounds reasonable. No idea how you got "about 200 times too much sodium" - my bet is you are making some mistake in your calculations. Can't you just use 100 times less sodium bicarbonate?

But: seems to me like these numbers are in the vicinity of amounts of ion present in natural waters, so you should first analyze your water. Not easy, not cheap.

[Enthalpy]

In case the natural available water needs a complement of these salts, you might store them as a brine rather than a solid (but carbonate can be more difficult then). A brine would mix with the water more quickly than a salt dissolves.

Stirring is always a good idea, not only to accelerate the dissolution, but also to get a homogeneous solution. Besides stirring, a fine powder also accelerates the dissolution. A solid that makes bubbles too - like Aspirin tablets. If a block is preferred, sintering it from a powder, imperfectly to leave voids, accelerates the dissolution - like is done for coffee sugar.

[cowman17]

On paper using a mainly sodium bicarbonate mixture, with some NaCl and Potassium bicarbonate I get about 200 times more sodium than I need.

OK.  Why did that happen.  If you got exactly 200x, why not use exactly 200x less salts, or 200x more water?  Why sodium bicarbonate?  Some other reason you haven't mentioned?

A whole days worth of salt mixture must be placed in the water tank. The water tanks automatically refill when they get low. So if I place the amount of salt needed in the tank to make the 200-500 L of water in the tank the proper solution i have only treated enough water for about 5-10 animals, not the 100-300 that use that water tank that day. Sodium Bicarbonate has a lower solubility compared to other salts. That's why it was chosen, but if it doesn't dissolve at a rate quick enough to keep the minimum ion level in the tank I will move to something else like NaCl.

Will you show us your math?  How many grams NaCl, etc.  We do require students to show their work on this forum.

I will work on building a google doc to show my work or upload a spreadsheet.

It dissociates to roughly the correct amount of Na, Cl, K, and Mg

You mean dissolves, then dissociates into the ions, ok.  Why do we want to be "rough" about it?

The variables present will not allow me to be exact. The combination of uncontrollable variables like water temperature in the tank and the rate at which the cattle drink the water/ the tank refills will only allow us to get close. 

My goal is to formulate a mixture that gets me as close as I can to the ideal mixture.

Again, the "About" can mean anything.  It just makes our problems all the more difficult.

I have done some digging in the beef cattle research Nutrition book and found my target window. It will be in the google doc or spreadsheet I post here.

Not using an agitator so how much will that impact max solubility and rate of dissociation

Lots.  And badly.  Not really worth calculating, to the g/L level of hundreds of liters if we can't control mixing.

Cattle are going to drink Liters of water at a time. With that understanding we know some water will be more concentrated than the rest, but if the average concentration of the tank is correct and there isn't just a giant "hot spot" around the pill it should work. There are ways to improve mixing, but constant mixing isn't an option. My hope/ thought is with enough data points/experiments in the lab I will be able to create predictive equations that will say how much surface are of the pill (Because I will know how many L/d the cattle will drink and I will know the mean water temperature that day)

Could I use glucose, sucrose,

That should probably be avoided no matter what, given the biology of cattle.  Real veterinary knowledge is needed here.

Funny thing about Vets, they take the same animal nutrition college classes as high school FFA teachers do but nobody asks them what they think (well they did at my Uni). I got a post grad degree in animal science with a focus in nutrition. The addition of glucose and sucrose would be fine.

[Arkcon]

A whole days worth of salt mixture must be placed in the water tank. The water tanks automatically refill when they get low. So if I place the amount of salt needed in the tank to make the 200-500 L of water in the tank the proper solution i have only treated enough water for about 5-10 animals, not the 100-300 that use that water tank that day.

OK.  This is simply poorly thought out, by you.  You can't put a days worth of salts, in part of a days worth of water, add water during the day as cows drink it, and expect it to balance out by the end of the day.  The first cow will get 200x, the last cow will get 1/10x.

Sodium Bicarbonate has a lower solubility compared to other salts. That's why it was chosen, but if it doesn't dissolve at a rate quick enough to keep the minimum ion level in the tank I will move to something else like NaCl.

This seems like an idea, but there's nothing that can make cattle drink, and water be added at a constant rate like a slower dissolving salt.

There are other ideas in this thread that address your real problem.  I just wanted to mention where I see real difficultly in even implementing your plan.

[cowman17]

Attached is the spreadsheet showing my work. Which probably isn't right, but hey what do expect form someone who only got a B in Bio & O chem 

[cowman17]

One more screen shot.

[cowman17]

I truly appreciate your advice, it has helped & hopefully will speed up the process of figuring out "is this achievable or not"

*MOD Edit -- remove monster quote*

[Borek]

Hard to comment on your calculations seeing only results, not the formulas used. But I have a feeling you got it backwards, looks like you started with a pill composition to see if it fits the task. I would start with the amount of salts necessary for the full tank to calculate amount of salts required to get the required concentrations.

Still, this has problems Arckon mentioned, if the tank is refilled with water there is no way of keeping the composition of the solution stable (plus, it doesn't help with the initial composition problem, some natural waters can already have some of the ions in the amounts prescribed, so you will be increasing their concentration to much higher levels than you want).

No idea what is a daily characteristics of the water usage. If cows drink whole day in more or less equal amounts per hour, then some kind of formulation with slowly dissolving pills could help a bit. If they drink mostly in the morning (or evening, or any specific part of the day), this won't work.

[cowman17]

I started with the notion that I was working with pure water. At the time I hadn't taken a sample of my own water yet. I assumed if I figured out how to keep the concentration between 0.08-0.5 g/L Na, Cl, and K I would easily be able to adjust the formula for any specific water.

I understand that there is no way of keeping the solution stable, that is why I used the words like "roughly" and "about". The goal is to keep the water between the concentrations of 0.08-0.5 g/L Na, Cl, and K. If I have confidence that what I have done will be safe, I can set up experiments and test it.

I messed up the original post and gave you the whole story, it should have just been the simple question of "Is it possible to put a large amount of soluble salts (say 10kg) in a water tank and keep the concentration of the water under 2,500 mg/L of total dissolved salts, using any non mechanical/electrical means? Side note, this water tank automatically refills, to give you some numbers a 55 L tank in the winter (lowest water usage) should have fresh water coming in on average of 1 L/min"

[Arkcon]

But nonetheless, we have reached the basic idea -- like I told you, you're making a nutrient solution.  Now for microbe growth, nutrient solutions are very accurately designed and precisely maintained, because its a closed, sterile system.  Nutrient solution for greenhouse hydroponics, say, is a little more open, and just clean, not absolutely sterile.  So there's where "about" makes sense.  Your cattle are being grown by their own devices and your other animal husbandry procedures.  You want to make the best water for them to drink, so your "about" for this "nutrient solution" is even more apt.

Thing is, control needs in your case is just the same as for hydroponics nutrients.  And that's topic has come up on this board a few times.  First off, you need to know "about" the "range" of solutes in your input water.  Hydroponics often relies on sensors and valves to inject a concentrate, at time spaced intervals, as fresh water is injected.  The plants are monitored for the effects - growth, deleterious effects, water consumption, and the injections of fresh water and solute concentrate are dynamically altered.  And you will have to re-sample your water to double check that evaporation isn't over concentrating your nutrient solution.

You have some advantages -- you don't have to provide all nutrients for growth.  And the cattle aren't rooted into the water, altering its composition constantly, and they give better feedback than plants -- proper levels of salts should be palatable to cattle, and excessive levels should repel them, but you'll have to verify that experimentally.

Still a metered concentrate solution on a time and water usage driven injection valve seems like the way to go to address the problem.  Your trimmed down question:

I started with the notion that I was working with pure water. At the time I hadn't taken a sample of  "Is it possible to put a large amount of soluble salts (say 10kg) in a water tank and keep the concentration of the water under 2,500 mg/L of total dissolved salts, using any non mechanical/electrical means?

Just doesn't seem feasible at all.

[cowman17]

Cattle start to refuse water when total soluble salts level hits 3,000 mg/L

Is it feasible- probably not. But I live in rural america with nothing better to do at night, so I'm going to at least prove to myself that this won't work without some type of metered system, let me know if it makes since to you.

1. Measure specific gravity of my water
2. Pretend the water is distilled and add the correct amount of salts that would make the ideal mixture. Measure sg again.
3. Get more fresh water, pretend it is distilled again, add the maximum level of salts that is 100% safe for them to drink. Measure sg again.

Then fill up a tank, throw the PVC pipe with salts in it, and every 5 minutes drain a few liters of water off and measure sg to see if its within the range of the first two measurements. Take 3 samples, one next to the PVC tube, one furthest away form it & one in the middle. 

Will SG give a specific enough reading for this to work? Hydrometers are only like $20 or so right?

[cowman17]

Going to answer my own question with No, hydrometers will not work for this.