Hi Everyone,
I went on a journey to build my own NSA. I found some posts about using baking soda with super glue to secure the rocks together. I had concerns about the baking soda possibly increasing my alk in my reef, but I didn't read anyone else having that experience, so I went for it. I spent around 20 hours chiseling rocks and building my own NSA using 2-part putty to fill in the spaces between rocks and super glue with baking soda to really secure everything together, and it worked great to build the structure. After placing the structure into my tank, my trident was measuring alkalinity at 1 dkh above my norm, which I keep pretty constant. I freaked out and did further testing and long story short, I determined the baking soda in the rocks was causing the alk increase. I removed the rocks and dosed acid buffer to decrease my alk back to normal, which did decrease my pH. It took several days to get my alk and pH back to normal. I did further tests with the rocks in containers of saltwater to see if I could somehow neutralize the baking soda with a ton of acid or break apart the rocks and chisel away the baking soda. Neither worked and the rocks are in storage and useless at this point. Bought brand new rock and starting from scratch with my NSA build. Huge disappointment, bummer, and waste of a ton of money in rock and expensive glue masters super glue. Please don't make the same mistake I made. Don't use baking soda. I'm now using sugar sized sand instead of baking soda. The reaction isn't as fast but it works to solidify the rocks together. I'm sure some people may have had success with the baking soda method, maybe they used less than me or have a larger alk demand than me so it was manageable for their reef. But for me it was a disaster.
I went on a journey to build my own NSA. I found some posts about using baking soda with super glue to secure the rocks together. I had concerns about the baking soda possibly increasing my alk in my reef, but I didn't read anyone else having that experience, so I went for it. I spent around 20 hours chiseling rocks and building my own NSA using 2-part putty to fill in the spaces between rocks and super glue with baking soda to really secure everything together, and it worked great to build the structure. After placing the structure into my tank, my trident was measuring alkalinity at 1 dkh above my norm, which I keep pretty constant. I freaked out and did further testing and long story short, I determined the baking soda in the rocks was causing the alk increase. I removed the rocks and dosed acid buffer to decrease my alk back to normal, which did decrease my pH. It took several days to get my alk and pH back to normal. I did further tests with the rocks in containers of saltwater to see if I could somehow neutralize the baking soda with a ton of acid or break apart the rocks and chisel away the baking soda. Neither worked and the rocks are in storage and useless at this point. Bought brand new rock and starting from scratch with my NSA build. Huge disappointment, bummer, and waste of a ton of money in rock and expensive glue masters super glue. Please don't make the same mistake I made. Don't use baking soda. I'm now using sugar sized sand instead of baking soda. The reaction isn't as fast but it works to solidify the rocks together. I'm sure some people may have had success with the baking soda method, maybe they used less than me or have a larger alk demand than me so it was manageable for their reef. But for me it was a disaster.