Household Additives (1 Viewer)

[Guest]

What are some of the Off-The-Shelf items you use for your system? I know about Pickling Lime as a sub for Kalk. Also people use Epson salts for some reason, I'm not sure what for.

Are there any others?

What do they do?

How are they mixed?

What is the best method for adding to the tank?

Do the higher priced alternatives have any added bonus?

 

[fins]

Eric Borneman states that baking soda is an alternative for adjusting the PH. I'd have to look it up in his book, but it seems like a cheaper alternative than some of the pricey buffers.

 

[Guest]

The read that if you just use Baking Soda your PH will drop so you have to mix Washing Soda with it which is sodium carbonate. This stablizes the PH at 8.0 for the solution. To make this buffer it is 6 parts Baking soda to 1 part Washing Soda. The combination of the two Baking Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate) and Washing Soda (Sodium Carbonate) are what all the buffers you buy are made from.

 

[Guest]

Here is another way to do it.
http://www.c-sea.org/members/brad/articles/buffer.html

 

[Guest]

SuperDave,
Use the Pickling Lime the same way u use Kalk. The Epson salt is Magnesium Sulfate, use it the raise Magnesium level. On a 100 gal use 10 oz to raise 100 ppm of Magnesium. Mix it in about a gallon of RO water and just dump it in the tank, to be safe don't raise more then 100 ppm per day. Lately, my tank have problem with Magnesium level and I been use using alot Epson salt in my tank and I am not sure if that the cause of the algae outbreak .

 

[Cakepro]

Kevin, you may wish to read here or here or here and/or do a search on RC about epsom salts and sulfate. I hope everything is still doing well despite some new nuisance algae.

~ Sherri