manually dosing Alk

[e46er]

so for those who manually dose alk.

i bought a 1.2 Kg thing of seachem reef builder and its now running low

it always raised the alk what it said it would using this calculator
http://jdieck1.home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chemcalc.html
but its $20 bux at JL

do you guys buy the expensive name brand products or use baking soda?
or baked baking soda? and how long do you bake it?

[Jason McK]

I used to bake my Baking soda now I just add unbaked

J

[xtreme]

I use Arm & Hammer baking soda. If you pH is low bake it for a an hour at 300F, if you pH is ok don't bake it.

[globaldesigns]

I use the Seachem Reef Builder also, put in 1.5 tablespoons a day, keeps my alk right on. I find this cheap overall.

[kien]

I buy 4.4 pound boxes of arm and hammer baking soda. I do bake mine at 350 for about an hour? It is cheap. Comes out to about $1.20 per pound from Superstore.

Ps. If you happen to be at The superstore in Deerfoor Meadows on a Sunday and there are no more boxes of baking soda I appologize :lol:

[globaldesigns]

I buy 4.4 pound boxes of arm and hammer baking soda. I do bake mine at 350 for about an hour? It is cheap. Comes out to about $1.20 per pound from Superstore.

So what does baking it do? I am interested, as if I can do what you are doing, hey great! At what temp do you bake?

Also is there drawbacks to this method like on PH?

[kien]

So what does baking it do? I am interested, as if I can do what you are doing, hey great! At what temp do you bake?

Also is there drawbacks to this method like on PH?

If I recall correctly, you bake the baking soda/sodium
bicarbonate to try and get rid of CO2. CO2 will lower pH so as xtreme suggested, if your pH is generally low you'll want to bake so that youre not lowering your pH further with the CO2 in the baking soda. If pH is okay then the CO2 in the baking soda should be okay for your system.

I bake at 350F for about an hour. I just spread one box of baking soda onto a couple of baking sheets. I don't think you can over bake it. I've left it in the oven for a couple of hours.

[Jason McK]

Baking soda is actually Sodium Bicarbonate when you bake it you convert it to Sodium Carbonate by simpley off gassing the CO2

J

[KevinK]

so I always used Kent reef buffer dkh

on my 450 gal water vol, I aded 1/3 cup each 10 days (apr 1.5 kh drop in 11 days.)

so now, I pre mix 10 times 1/3 cup in 25 L. meaning it would be about 2L = 1/3 cup

I wanted to ad this devided by 10 days so about 200 ml/day

doing this now for 5 days, I found out that this way, my KH droped not 1.5 a 10 days, but 1kh each day

same product, same amounts, only pre mix for 100 days


any reason for this ?

the only thing I kan tink of is that I forgot to plug the pre mix bottle

so now I dont pre mix and ad dry powder again until I find the reason the pre mix drops so fast.

any exp. in this

when I'm out of the Kent I want to start the AH sodium bicarb. (have a 44 Lb bag ready

[e46er]

ok thanks guys

appreciate all input