Drifty Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 what is the best brand and how much is it. ] I can get king (made by hansell) for $2.50 per 500gms or Gilmors house brand $7.00 for 5kg I have heard king is the one to get but is there anything wrong with the gilmours house brand Also when baking it what exactly do you do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 any will do so long as its straight sodium bicarbonate with nothing else added! bake it removes Co2 I believe thus stops pH declining (it actually increases it) plus you dose less baked baking soda than if it wasnt baked. read here... http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drifty Posted June 7, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 thanks for the reply so do you bake it as a powder or do you add water to make a paste then bake it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 as a powder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 interesting you brought this up actually as i've been thinking about this additive system in the past few days and about an automatic (or simpler) way of dosing it. i've come up with a design for a three-way dosing system based on these additives (essentially 3 x 5 litre containers - one for akl, one for mg and one for ca. each would have a small dosing pump on each and all dosing run by a controller. to get advanced on it, you could have it have a probe for each too ) im interested in expanding on the design and maybe making a prototype for it. getting the containers and dosing pumps made would be easy, the controller would be the tricky part. the important part is dosing the additives over several days rather than just dumping say 3 litres of the alk additive in the tank in one go, as this would raise pH to sharply. could be quite a lucrative business idea if it were cheap enough to make? anyone interested in helping with the design? would sell well overseas i reckon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drifty Posted June 7, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 I got a 2 chanel doser from the US for the alk and cal dosing, it doses anything from 1ml to 300ml per hour. I will continue to dose mg manually Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasp Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 The Gilmours house brand is not the best quality, fine to use in baking, but not necessarily for our tanks. Having said that, it is the one I use, but only because I don't use much of it, if it was my only KH additive I would use something else. As for a 3 way dosing system per Chimeras suggestion, this will definately work. I did this myself for a time by using a 3 channel dosing pump. However, there is a drawback, you will actually use a lot more chemical than is being used by the corals, as much of it will precipitate out. When I was doing it my pumps calcified much faster also. It is nice to dose the magnesium automatically too, but not that essential, as it depletes more slowly & a weekly or even much less often top up with magnesium will not adversely affect the corals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 so long as its food grade brand (ie: anything from supermarket) you should be ok a 2 channel doser is still a 2 channel doser. thats all it does. turn it on, it doses. turn it off, it stops. dosing pumps are a dime a dozen. im talking about a completely integrated unit specifically designed for ca, kh and mg dosing. containers to add RODI too with overflow chambers, each container able to be dosed at different times to get around precipitation issues, controller that can turn a doser on to drip feed the tank over a period of several days thus increasing parameters slowly, a small powerhead in each to ensure the contents are mixed thoroughly prior to dosing. basically everything that can be done DIY with containers, dosers, mixers and timers but fully integrated into a nice little controlled system. i have already done drawings on one and changed it numerous times. just need to make up a prototype to see how it would function and test it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetskisteve Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 u just like gadgets Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 aye, so do a good percentage of the 126,000 members of reefcentral $$$ already got a mate who's going to design the controller/LCD screen etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suphew Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 dosing pumps are a dime a dozen would be interested to know where they can be got for dime a dozen, I looked into them when I had fresh water for adding plant fert and couldn't find any cheap enough (ie. tens of dollars not hundreds) to be worth doing. By the way, what I did find was that you could buy control units and pumps from hydroponic's stores, the controllers could have just about any type of probe plugged into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 "a dime a dozen" means it's very common and easy to get, not cheap to buy. might go check some hydroponics stores out cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 That's not the definition most people use...Must be a reefer thing that a dime a dozen means expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 yeah well, typically its cheap and plentiful i guess, but i've seen it used often where money is irrelevant. eg: Don't listen to what she says, her stories are a dime a dozen. anyways, im NOT getting into a layton/wasp argument over a small piece of written text - you get my point and if you didnt, you're being pedantic oh, and anything related to reef keeping = expensive ira, you should know that by now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reef Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 rather than just dumping say 3 litres of the alk additive in the tank in one go, as this would raise pH to sharply. could be quite a lucrative business idea I think you missed the boat, its called the balling method. been out for some time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cracker Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 what is the best brand and how much is it. ] I can get king (made by hansell) for $2.50 per 500gms or Gilmors house brand $7.00 for 5kg I have heard king is the one to get but is there anything wrong with the gilmours house brand Also when baking it what exactly do you do? Hey drifty, Been down that road. Kings is the best IMO. The house brand from Gilmours I looked at too, but if you read the label, it says it may contain traces of nuts etc. Not worth it IMO. KINGS FOR ME!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 I think you missed the boat, its called the balling method. been out for some time seems all the good ideas are gone I wonder if it can be made cheaper than this? http://www.grotech-aquarientechnik.de/c ... ucts_id=86 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lduncan Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 The expensive part, as everyone who's looked have found out, is the dosing pumps. They all seem to be for medical uses, with the price tag to match. The cheapest I've found were OEM ones from Autoclaude ( www.autocludepumps.com ), and they were about 29 pounds per pump in quantities of a couple of hundred (50 pounds for samples). If you can manufacture the pump yourself, then you could potentially make it cheaper, but then you're looking at high minimum volume, or massive manual work. Also the synchronous ac motors are not particularly cheap, and if you go with DC, then you generally need a geared system which also soon adds to the cost. I've looked at getting the Grotech system, it looks really good. I guess it works out to be similar price to a decent sized calcium reactor, but it's still a lot of money for what it is. Layton Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skuzza Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 Crackers right kings is the one for the job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fay Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 Nice tidy little unit put me down for one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 nice alright but at 455 euro's (NZ$900), i think i'll opt out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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