New DIY Two Part Recipes with Higher pH Boost

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It's regular air tubing, not the silicon but more rigid one

I'm not sure what sorts of flexible tubing might be bad, but silicone should be OK, as would polyethylene. Some tubing types may discolor but that doesn't necessarily mean they are unsuitable. Silicone might discolor, for example.

 

[Unholy_Rigatoni]

That should be fine.

Make sure the jugs are not polycarbonate. They won't handle the alk portion.

I believe they're polypropylene, so they should be fine?
Thanks for the reply, and also thank you for all the awesome knowledge you've shared with the hobby over the years!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I believe they're polypropylene, so they should be fine?
Thanks for the reply, and also thank you for all the awesome knowledge you've shared with the hobby over the years!

yes, pp is fine. Thanks!

 

[Useful_Idiot]

That should be fine.

Make sure the jugs are not polycarbonate. They won't handle the alk portion.

Square BRS jugs that GAC come in are polycarbonate. Takes a few days before the bottom cracks though;Facepalm

 

[Unholy_Rigatoni]

Only been two days but I thought I would share some visible results - 7.5ml a day via Apex DOS for my not-quite-mature 4 month 30 gallon cube. It basically eliminates the pH dip that occurs during lights out ahd gives a small rise to pH overall, although it's a small difference. The pH range is now 8.07 to 8.25, compared to 8.17 and 8.93 previously. The blue sections indicate when the DOS head doses the alkalinity portion.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks for the graph! :)

 

[Unholy_Rigatoni]

Only been two days but I thought I would share some visible results - 7.5ml a day via Apex DOS for my not-quite-mature 4 month 30 gallon cube. It basically eliminates the pH dip that occurs during lights out ahd gives a small rise to pH overall, although it's a small difference. The pH range is now 8.07 to 8.25, compared to 8.17 and 8.93 previously. The blue sections indicate when the DOS head doses the alkalinity portion.

Oops it should be 7.93 to 8.17 previously, typo

 

[Unholy_Rigatoni]

Just another update a month down the road. Currently dosing 15ml a day, and pleased that pH is holding steady at 8 to 8.3.

 

[choooch]

Would anyone happen to know if I could add Tropic Marin Pro Coral K+ and A- to either of these solutions?

Thanks

 

[choooch]

Would anyone happen to know if I could add Tropic Marin Pro Coral K+ and A- to either of these solutions?

Thanks

Bump

 

[Unholy_Rigatoni]

Bump

Never used those myself but I have added Fauna Marin Balling trace elements 1,2,3 to my two part and witnessed no precipitation, thus far anyway.

 

[BoredNuke]

Looking to swap over to this nice two part recipe but also don't want to throw away a relatively full bag of Brightwell Magneisum-P I have. Using very rudimentary reverse calculations via the online "Reef Chemistry Calculator ©
By: JDieck "
261.2 grams Mg Chloride Hexahydrate ~ 126 grams of Mg Chloride Anhydrous.
I don't trust my memory enough to power through mole conversion as Chem classes where a long time ago. So if anyone has already done it or used Mag P as a substitute would be nice to know. Also the Mag P is a unstated combination of Mg Sulfate and Mg Chloride (both anhydrous) will this be a major issue? Probably gonna lower the added amount down to 100 grams just as a safety factor since Mg is fairly slowly depleted. Thank you for any tips in advance and for this thread already.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Looking to swap over to this nice two part recipe but also don't want to throw away a relatively full bag of Brightwell Magneisum-P I have. Using very rudimentary reverse calculations via the online "Reef Chemistry Calculator ©
By: JDieck "
261.2 grams Mg Chloride Hexahydrate ~ 126 grams of Mg Chloride Anhydrous.
I don't trust my memory enough to power through mole conversion as Chem classes where a long time ago. So if anyone has already done it or used Mag P as a substitute would be nice to know. Also the Mag P is a unstated combination of Mg Sulfate and Mg Chloride (both anhydrous) will this be a major issue? Probably gonna lower the added amount down to 100 grams just as a safety factor since Mg is fairly slowly depleted. Thank you for any tips in advance and for this thread already.

depending on what recipe you are using, you can use it. But you cannot mix magnesium sulfate into the calcium part of a two part. You will precipitate calcium sulfate.

 

[BoredNuke]

depending on what recipe you are using, you can use it. But you cannot mix magnesium sulfate into the calcium part of a two part. You will precipitate calcium sulfate.

Okay so essentially what ever portion is Mg sulfate will be wasted as well as any calcium used in precipitation. Will probably dial mag p down to 50% to test observed effectiveness? Really wish brightwell labeled it better as I would prefer to know if it was 20% or 90% sulfate. Just gonna have to do experimentation and if Calc doesn't keep up remove th mag-p and just manually dose Mg.
Hopefully I'm not misinterpreting your reply as I think another interpretation would be it will precipitate all the calcium in solution even with just a small addition of magnesium sulfate. And this is all attempting to replicate the recipe you laid out at the start of this thread (in other words: Thank you)

 

[JimWelsh]

It can only precipitate as much CaSO4 as there is SO4 on a molar basis. In practice, some Ca and SO4 will remain in solution (after all, NSW has plenty of both without precipitating), so it will actually precipitate less CaSO4 than the amount SO4, again, on a molar basis.

Adding a small amount of MgSO4 will not cause any sort of catalytic precipitation of all available Ca as described in your "another interpretation".

 

[BoredNuke]

It can only precipitate as much CaSO4 as there is SO4 on a molar basis. In practice, some Ca and SO4 will remain in solution (after all, NSW has plenty of both without precipitating), so it will actually precipitate less CaSO4 than the amount SO4, again, on a molar basis.

Adding a small amount of MgSO4 will not cause any sort of catalytic precipitation of all available Ca as described in your "another interpretation".

Thank you I feel a lot better going forward with the test and see what happens!

 

[pwilliaml]

So I started reading this thread when it first started and went with the sodium hydroxide to raise my pH and it worked great. I stopped using it to try a true two part that had a bunch of other elements in it as well, but it is prohibitively expensive, so I'm coming back to this. Without going through all 24 pages, has anything changed, or is the recipe on page 1 for the sodium hydroxide method still the same? Also, anyone found a way to add trace elements to this 2 part to keep it truly a 2 part, or do you have to add a 3rd solution to add the trace elements? Thinking about adding a third solution of Tropic Marin's part C or someone else's trace elements part to this method and looking for advice. Thanks!

 

[PeterErc]

Awesome thread, thanks for all the info and hard work.
Hopefully a new company will start as two-part solution did with Randy’s original recipe and sell the ingredients to make this new solution. Thats my plug for a small business entrepreneur. Who knows maybe you can end up buying out brs or even Amazon.

Long term users, any noticeable benefits of the higher PH? I would speculate that the higher PH is beneficial but give me some proof.

I chased PH some years back and conceded to the fact that the PH is what it is. As long as all other parameters were in check my SPS systems flourished. Being a manual two part doser and limewater lover it would be difficult to switch to the hydroxide solution. Relying on a doser that people have nuked tanks with never appealed to me before But as time goes by(older) maybe its time to step up, if the higher PH is all that beneficial

thanks for your time

 

[BoredNuke]

Awesome thread, thanks for all the info and hard work.
Hopefully a new company will start as two-part solution did with Randy’s original recipe and sell the ingredients to make this new solution. Thats my plug for a small business entrepreneur. Who knows maybe you can end up buying out brs or even Amazon.

Long term users, any noticeable benefits of the higher PH? I would speculate that the higher PH is beneficial but give me some proof.

I chased PH some years back and conceded to the fact that the PH is what it is. As long as all other parameters were in check my SPS systems flourished. Being a manual two part doser and limewater lover it would be difficult to switch to the hydroxide solution. Relying on a doser that people have nuked tanks with never appealed to me before But as time goes by(older) maybe its time to step up, if the higher PH is all that beneficial

thanks for your time

Just finished large system upgrade (Added Apex W trident + large media reactors and BioPellet reactor) will be swapping the higher pH recipe starting late next month. Not a very good experiment but plan on running on nearly non dosing schedule using mostly Kalkwasser for the next month and then swapping to this high pH recipe (and removing kalkwasser as I dislike varying evaporation changing chemical additions). Aside from pH swings (currently 7.8-8.0) not sure if I will see drastic improvements but if I do will update here to give further appreciation to the work done. Nice idea about starting a company/product as I'm sure there's some profit in repackaging the chemicals into a less diy single purchase/source (and hopefully give randy his credit/ some profit share for all the work he has done).

 

[chema]

Has anyone used a trace element solution to balance for the NaCl increase when using this recipe? For instance the part C developed by Tropic Marin.