ALK/KH ADDITIVE

[LinkinPark]

Hi

I'm using 2 teaspoons of Salifert KH+PH additive daily to maintain the carbonate hardness in the range of 9-12 dkh and find it to be very costly.

I'm thinking of using baking soda and this is what I found:

Redman (ie the brand) baking soda potash, ingredient: sodium bicarbonate.

Is this the right alternative to Salifert's?

or is there any other brands or stuff you use to increase ALK?

[SharkBait]

dosing kalkwasser will maintain your DKH

[FuEl]

Seachem's reef builder.

Use it to raise kH to desired level..

Then you just dose kalk to maintain the level.

[Morgan]

LP

Never tried out pure sodium bicarbonate other than those from Seachem reef builder. Cannot advise........but you could get reef builder quite cheap currently.

[Tanzy]

Kent has SuperbufferDKH which can also increase dKH. I think it's quite similar to Seachem Reef Buffer in application. I do not know about any qualitative or chemical differences.

Redman sodium bicarbonate or baking soda sounds like food grade material. It might be suitable if you do not need feel the need to use purer substances in the tank. If you choose to use sodium bicarbonate, you will be using the equivalent of two-part solutions, because you'll still need something to increase calcium which will be calcium chloride or gluconate.

[newdamsel]

As KH is a general measure of TOTAL ALKALINITY, sometimes we have to ask ourselves, what are we adding to increase the dKH value. We desire to have a high dKH value achieved via addition of bicarb and carb. Its this two components that we are mainly interested in, as they help in the coral growth. If i'm not wrong, seachem has included a rather high dosage of borates to prop up the dKH values, as a very small amount of this chemical can increase dKH values considerably.

[onghm]

If i'm not wrong, seachem has included a rather high dosage of borates to prop up the dKH values, as a very small amount of this chemical can increase dKH values considerably.

Hi Newdamsel,

Regarding the high borate contents, you are not referring to reef builder right ?

So far, I've yet to come across any mention of reef builder containing borate.

If you do come across, pls share with us. I would be very concerned as I've been using reef builder

Below is a cut out from RC thread which suggested that seachem reef's product does not contain borates. By the way, seachem has 2 range of products; marine and reef. Their marine buffer does contain borates :-

I just got off the phone with Rusty from SeaChem Tech Support.

He told me that all the Reef products, Reef Buffer, Reef Builder, and Reef Carbonate DO NOT contain any borate. This is indicated by the color coding of their products. The purplish color indicates that the alkalinity is coming from carbon based sources.

With the Marine Buffer, it provides about 25% of the alkalinity with borate. This is color coded orange. It is designed for a non-reef environment.

For full details, refer to http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...=borate+seachem

My 2 cents

[Tanzy]

Borate is not bad for the tank. In fact it is good. Many products exclude borates because commercial aquariums use ozonizers which interact with boron to produce toxins. I prefer to have some borates as part of the overall alkalinity because it is not used up by the corals and remain to buffer the water from pH swings. Of course, if you do use a substantial amount of borates, you must have a test kit for it.

[onghm]

Tanzy,

Thanks for the info on borate.

LinkinPark,

I got the 1kg bottle of seachem reefbuilder and reef advantage calcium for $2x each from Petmart.

Quite cheap i think, if not very cheap

[newdamsel]

Oops.. sorry Onghm.. i think i got mistaken.. its not reef builder but the synthetic salt mixtures by seachem that has artificially high boron contents.

http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/19...s/1/default.asp

However according to advance aquarist, its Kent marine thats incorporating high amounts of borates into their additives. To save trouble, i have cut and paste the paragraph by Advanced Aquarist written by RANDY HOLMES-FARLEY, here.

"Boron in Alkalinity Supplements

Some brands of alkalinity supplements or “buffers” are claimed to contain added boron (such as Marine Aquarium Buffer, Pro●Buffer dKH, and Superbuffer dKH made by Kent), while others do not (such as Reef Builder, Reef Buffer, and Reef Carbonate made by Seachem). Unfortunately, those that contain boron do not indicate how much, either on the bottle, or when the manufacturer is directly asked. The only statement made is that it is an “important contribution.” Consequently, it is not apparent, without lab testing, whether the amounts of boron present are large enough to be useful. It is also not apparent whether the amounts present might be high enough to invoke some of the undesirable effects of boron that are described below."

Tanzy, indeed boron addition might be good for stabilizing the pH for the tank, but however accumulation of boron over time can cause problems. For your comments

"Elevated Boron: Toxicity

At boron levels above that present in natural seawater, as is supplied in some artificial salt mixes and as may develop from overuse of boron supplements, boron begins to exert undesirable toxicity on a number of organisms. The studies on marine organisms are not wide ranging, so one must be careful in how to interpret levels above natural seawater since tests have not been run on most of the organisms that we keep.

In general, marine organisms (invertebrates and fish) are seemingly more prone to experience toxicity from boron than are freshwater species. The marine isopod Limnoria lignorum has a 24-hour LC50 (that is, the concentration at which 50% die in 24 hours) of only 2.6 mM (28 ppm boron). That is only about 6 times the concentration in natural seawater (and is BELOW the concentration in Seachem salt mix!). Similarly, the dab, Limanda limanda (a North Sea Fish), has a 96-hour LC50 of 6.8 mM (74 ppm boron)."

"Elevated Boron: Confounding Interpretation of Alkalinity Tests

One additional complication that comes from substantially elevated borate is the confounding of the interpretation of alkalinity tests. When reef aquarists are concerned about alkalinity, they are almost invariably concerned with the alkalinity that comes from bicarbonate and carbonate, and it is largely used as a surrogate measure of bicarbonate, which is necessary for calcification. Nearly all hobby test kits measure alkalinity with a single titration that provides total alkalinity, which is the sum of bicarbonate, carbonate, and borate alkalinity. When the levels of boron are similar to natural levels, then the contribution of borate to that test is minimal, and is generally safely ignored in guidelines for alkalinity (for example, keeping a reef tank at 2.5-4 meq/L total alkalinity).

However, if the boron level is substantially above natural levels, as it is in the Seachem salt mix with 12x normal levels, borate can actually begin to dominate such tests, 19 and makes knowing the real bicarbonate and carbonate alkalinity much more difficult. Seachem sells a special borate alkalinity test kit to try to disentangle these effects, but that is only really necessary with tank water that contains greatly elevated boron levels."

I do not know whether this boron thing is an exaggerated problem or not, but since randy has expressed his concern think I'll just try my best to avoid if anyway possible man...

[Tanzy]

I do use a boron testkit to ensure that it is not overdosed. Anything that goes into the tank must be fully understood and monitored, especially inorganic salts.

[newdamsel]

Very agree