Need advice on 2 part dosing

[Razor Ramon]

Yup yup! That price not bad if your able to drive across the border and pick it up at a snail box! Or ok with the high shipping costs that I don’t like at all.
The product I used was Seachem powder and it kept going up when I stoped using it it was &35 for 2.2lbs I’d go trough $70 a month then went to the peanut butter lol.
Seems that anything I buy from the USA by time I get it it’s 1.5X the price!
My next step will be calcium reactor for sure!

[Frogger]

I have used the BRS bulk product, the reefsupplies.ca bulk product and the J&L bulk product. I would say the Canadian products are about the same price the as each other however the BRS with the low Canadian dollar is probably about 1.5 to 2 times more expensive if you have it shipped to directly Canada, a little cheaper if you go through a mail box in Washington State (not currently an option). Washington State now charges sales tax on all items sent there making it less of a deal. I think it is about 8% on top of your order.

I would say the BRS product comes in better bags and mixes purer than the Canadian products.

Given the choice I would use the BRS product in a heart beat, but then again I am a pure water freak and have never in 30 years added tap water to my tank (5 stage RO plus 2 stage DI only for me). I ended up buying a load of the Reefsupply.ca bulk (supposed to be best quality available) during a big sale about 9 months ago. I will purchase the J&L product in a pinch.

Amazon.com now ships many products to Canada quickly. You can buy bulk additives from them a lot cheaper than anywhere else. I would not under any circumstance use products that are not at least Food grade minimum. I usually look for only 99% pure or better.

I bought a couple pounds of NaSO4 (99%pure) off amazon.com about 6 months ago. NaSO4 is used to create a more ionically balanced true 2 part mixture than using MgCl and MgSO4 mixture. Refer to Randy Holmes Farley's true 2 part mixture for recipe. NaSO4 is not readily available in Canada.

[DKoKoMan]

Originally Posted by Dash

I'm going to look into this further - would certainly make things simpler for me with JL being 5 mins away. Just out of interest, what's your dosage these days (I know your system is larger).


Haha, don't talk to me about simple. Tap water, no ATO, no auto doser. These days, it's even worse as my stupid LED's clock/timer is not working (don't ask) so I have to adjust my lighting manually!

I’m currently at around 45ml a day of ALK and CAL. I was up to 60ml of each at one point. Unfortunately I lost a bunch of my larger colonies when my ATO failed, but I would consider it sustainable for 2 part dosing. I think a calcium reactor will be foreseeable in the future for sure. That being said the 2 part I’m using is considered food grade and at a very reasonable price.

[juanlien]

Originally Posted by 1eyedjyde

You have a couple options,

Reefsupplies.ca is a good source for bulk media, calcium and sodium carbonate, it's the canadian BRS.

Or you can go the route of de-icings salts as per Randy Holmes http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

I've gone both directions here but I've gone on the second option for the past 4 years mainly because I was able to get a 20kg bag of sodium carbonate which is more difficult to get (or make) than calcium chloride and magnesium chloride. Ease of acquiring the media dictates the direction I would go.

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great advice