New DIY Two Part Recipes with Higher pH Boost

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks.. currently im using kalk too, but my mag levels are too low and also my alk some how stays 6.9 instead of 7.2 that i generally maintain. Im using reef adv cal and reef builder. What do u suggest? Or shud i dose kalk and mag with sr or stop kalk and continue only with reef adv cal and reef builder. Im confused.

The problem is that you are maintaining 6.9 dKH and want 7.2 dKH? What happens if you dose more of the calcium and alkalinity supplements?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What I mean is that the ratio between sodium:chloride and sulfats:chloride (some may say ionic balance) is slightly skewed. Everyone needs to replace x amount of saltwater with rodi-water eventually. I basically calculate how much water I need to replace in order to stablize salinity and also how much of each element is removed by doing so. (I have no skimmer pulling out x amount of water everythime so like to know exaftly how much water I need to remove manually) No matter what size tank/how concentrated the solution is.. salts are added in a fixed amount for each gram of elements dosed.
e.g. 2.5 liter needs to be removed for every 40gr of sodiumhydroxide (and equal part calcium ofcoursd) is dosed. Than this will incle 2.5l x 2700 mg SO4 = 6,75 gr of SO4 that will be lost when removing water. (each liter of nsw has 2700mg sulfates, each liter has x amount of ca/mg/sr/b/k.. and calculate back how much mgchlorde/cachloride etc is removed by x amount of water and compesate for that by adding slightly more mgchlore/cachloride etc). However also compensating for the lost elements will raise sodium, chloride and sulfate, but there is a point where x amount of elements added and x amount of water removed break even in term of salts added and salts removed. And when I hit that point so4 is around 19 percent of chloride (that is the only thing I noticed).
I will add the table/graph later.. makes it much clearer. But I do have to note that I did change the Ca:kH ratio to 19,5:2,8 as your recipe is 18,5Ca per 2,8kH did not work for my sps tank ( I stear on kH, so this resulted in a slight Ca drop and increase in Mg), and the orginal contains more magnesiumchloride to calciumchloride maybe this ups the amount of total chlorides added. I will also calculate this as it may be very interesting..But this is JimWelch recipe so mayve kH:Ca is doses like balling classing 2,8:20.. I will have too see. But I am absolutely thrilled that this is a genuine 2-part now!

My original two part recipe is not going to substantially skew the chloride to sulfate ratio. I showed that in the article describing it.

I presume that is true in Jim’s version as well, although I did not personally check it. Since neither chloride nor sulfate is consumed, you just need the total chloride and sulfate in the recipe to roughly match the chloride to sulfate ratio in seawater. That is how we decided how much to add. If that holds, then the recipe won’t cause that sort of ionic imbalance. It might even fix one over time since the ratio present in salt mixes varies substantially.

Sodium is not related to that balance, but instead balances against the positive charged ions. If you control salinity, calcium, and magnesium, then the only substantial positive charge that can be balanced against sodium is potassium. It is worth monitoring potassium, but if you do that, sodium cannot be off significantly.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

FWIW, I wouldn’t agonize over the chloride to sulfate ratio. It seems to vary substantially between salt mixes and between tanks that are seemingly thriving. [emoji3]

 

[Tmmste]

My original two part recipe is not going to substantially skew the chloride to sulfate ratio. I showed that in the article describing it.

I presume that is true in Jim’s version as well, although I did not personally check it. Since neither chloride nor sulfate is consumed, you just need the total chloride and sulfate in the recipe to roughly match the chloride to sulfate ratio in seawater. That is how we decided how much to add. If that holds, then the recipe won’t cause that sort of ionic imbalance. It might even fix one over time since the ratio present in salt mixes varies substantially.

Sodium is not related to that balance, but instead balances against the positive charged ions. If you control salinity, calcium, and magnesium, then the only substantial positive charge that can be balanced against sodium is potassium. It is worth monitoring potassium, but if you do that, sodium cannot be off significantly.

Hi Randy, thank you for elaborating on this, if I did not make any mistakes, this is what it currently looks like with the orginal recipe if I include the elements lost with roughly 3.1 liter of water (the Mg to Ca ratio is the same including the salinity correctio, sodiumsulfate to sodiumhydroxide only the same before correcting salinity.. including salinity correction is a totally different story). I accidently deleted the amount of potassium iodide I see. Indeed the ratio is for 2,8 kH and roughly 20 Ca.. although I think you made a remark in you Triton test results about kalkwasser and Ca slowly rising because some kH is used by Mg right? In this recipe the amount of Mg is only compensated for the amounts removed per 3.1l of water, not what may be used by corals.

Edit: I also noticed I need to add a lot of sodiumsulfate... even more than sodiumhydroxide.. instead of 18,3% as suggested in the recipe.. this will be over 100% (8.37 grams of SO4 is removed with 3.1l of water... which equals 37gr of sodiumsulfate.. which is already 92% of the amount of sodiumhydroxide.. 18,3% is suggested though)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It will take a while to work through this, but you might read these in the meantime:

Rationale and calculations for my recipe:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php#19

and Jim's discussion of his version:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...hould-i-expect-to-change.215171/#post-2466696

 

[Tmmste]

It will take a while to work through this, but you might read these in the meantime:

Rationale and calculations for my recipe:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php#19

and Jim's discussion of his version:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...hould-i-expect-to-change.215171/#post-2466696

I have been reading those, I'll compare and see to what extend the calculations differ. I noticed an error randy, I copy-pasted the table and the amount of water referred to the other table! My apologies for that.

if the calculations are correct, I think this would be better

 

[Tmmste]

this image is a bit more reader friendly;

 

[nanomania]

The problem is that you are maintaining 6.9 dKH and want 7.2 dKH? What happens if you dose more of the calcium and alkalinity supplements?

Im measuring using hanna checker dkh

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

this image is a bit more reader friendly;

So what am I looking for now? Some specific imbalance?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Im measuring using hanna checker dkh

And what happens if you dose more?

 

[nanomania]

And what happens if you dose more?

Didnt rise, so i added bit more today, will recheck after 2 days. However corals are looking better now..

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Didnt rise, so i added bit more today, will recheck after 2 days. However corals are looking better now..

How much of what are you adding? Alkalinity typically depletes every day and typically must be supplemented to keep it up.

 

[nanomania]

How much of what are you adding? Alkalinity typically depletes every day and typically must be supplemented to keep it up.

I increased my manual dosing by 50% (reefbuilder premixed 36ml in total of 500ml dosing bottle) and my kalk dosing is the same in my ato.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I increased my manual dosing by 50% (reefbuilder premixed 36ml in total of 500ml dosing bottle) and my kalk dosing is the same in my ato.

Can you calculate how much dKH per day that alk supplement is adding? I can't really tell exactly what you did.

 

[nanomania]

Can you calculate how much dKH per day that alk supplement is adding? I can't really tell exactly what you did.

How do I do that? Doni measure before and after dosing? I use to dose 20ml, now dosing 30ml of the solution i told u above for alk.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

this image is a bit more reader friendly;

You said in the other thread:

"I will add much more sulfate. 37,52 gr per 40gr sodium hydroxide to be exact. This 37,52gr contains 8,47 gr of sulfate. which is 14% of the 60,54gr Chloride which is added by the stock solution. "

I still don't get it. Are you talking about sodium sulfate or magnesium sulfate heptahydrate? The recipe in this thread uses only sodium sulfate. There's no magnesium sulfate used, and 37.52 grams of anhydrous sodium sulfate contains 25.4 grams of sulfate, not 8.47 grams.

 

[Tmmste]

You said in the other thread:

"I will add much more sulfate. 37,52 gr per 40gr sodium hydroxide to be exact. This 37,52gr contains 8,47 gr of sulfate. which is 14% of the 60,54gr Chloride which is added by the stock solution. "

I still don't get it. Are you talking about sodium sulfate or magnesium sulfate heptahydrate? The recipe in this thread uses only sodium sulfate. There's no magnesium sulfate used, and 37.52 grams of anhydrous sodium sulfate contains 25.4 grams of sulfate, not 8.47 grams.

I am also talking about sodium sulfate.. Maybe we are looking at a different element then? I am looking at Na2SO4;
https://www.convertunits.com/molarmass/Sodium+Sulfate

37,52gr Sodium Sulfate x 0,22574 = 8,47 gr sulfate. edit; No you are right! I miss the "O" indeed!!! I will have to recalculate stuff. I sincerely apologise for this, it is a big mistake on my part.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I am also talking about sodium sulfate.. Maybe we are looking at a different element then? I am looking at Na2SO4;
https://www.convertunits.com/molarmass/Sodium+Sulfate

37,52gr Sodium Sulfate x 0,22574 = 8,47 gr sulfate. edit; No you are right! I miss the "O" indeed!!! I will have to recalculate stuff. I sincerely apologise for this, it is a big mistake on my part.

No problem. I hope the math all works out now.

Jim Welsh (the inventor of the recipe) is quite a meticulous mathematical chemist (he won't like the chemist term I think, but I name him one anyway), so I have confidence he did it right. He corrects me all the time. :D

 

[Tmmste]

No problem. I hope the math all works out now.

Jim Welsh (the inventor of the recipe) is quite a meticulous mathematical chemist (he won't like the chemist term I think, but I name him one anyway), so I have confidence he did it right. He corrects me all the time. :D

Yes, it caught me by surprise indeed! (absolutely shocked I missed that one...does hurt a bit). Math is no problem, all formulas. I will continue friddling with the numbers a bit as I would like to compensate Sr and K too My goal is to find out which elements drop using a scrubber. It would be nice to know for scrubber-only users. There is no recipe for that, but I guess there are probably some elements in a handfull of this stuff. Thank you for pointing in the right direction Randy! Kind regards from the Netherlands, Tim.

 

[Tmmste]

Dear Randy, I have been doing the calculations for the current recipe, just to see if I could replicate the current recipe. In these calculations the NSW-level is the target to "maintain" with the current recipe (not taking any trace elements into consideration. Natural Seawater Levels:
kH 7.0
Ca 412
Mg 1295
Sulfate 2701

I was unable to get to the same amount of magnesium when I targeted natural seawater levels. Only when I raised the amount of magnesium that needs to be replaced to 1613, I was able to exactly replicate the recipe.

As I was unable to replicate the recipe with the golden standard 20Ca per 2,8 kH, I wondered if this recipe indeed targets around 18,5 per 2,8 kH and why the amount of magnesium is higher than needed. (especially if the targeted Ca is around 20 per 2,8Kh.. the excess magnesium does not make any sense to me).