Amoo
Professional Thread Derailer
As many of you know Randy has some excellent DIY recipes for 2 part dosing and one of his recommended DIY solutions for Alk is Soda Ash. Which is normally carried by most pool supply stores.
So I finally began to run low on the Baking Soda that I had been using and live in Podunk, BFE, but figured hey, we have a pool store, I should go get some Soda Ash and save some electricity. So I walk in, ask the manager/owner if they have any Soda Ash and he immediately looks at me cross-eyed. At this point I know I'm in trouble. He says they might and heads to the back.
He comes back out a few minutes later and tells me he can't find a bag of Soda Ash, but they do have Dolamite which he thinks might be what I'm looking for since he's never heard of soda ash.
So the good news is I found a supplier of Dolamite, sadly Calcium Magneseum Carbonate is not what I need to raise Alkalinity.
I'm already not making any progress so I figure I'll swing for the fences before leaving defeated. On a whim I say to him, "Hmm, do you guys have anything sodium carbonate or baking soda".
He says, "No we don't have baking soda but we do have Sodium Bicarbonate, that must be what you mean."
As any polite Southerner would do I looked at the bag and saw 100% purity looked at him and smiled and said, "Yup that's the stuff, can I get a bag."
By telling you guys this I hope to accomplish 2 things.
1. Posting a thread in the Chem forum outside the norm that hopefully some people find helpful.
2. Letting you folks know that if you live in areas like I do where it's hard to find anything, it helps to know exactly what you're looking for. Sodium Bicarbonate is Baking Soda for those who didn't know. So while I will still have to cook my baking soda, which I was hoping to avoid, I was able to find a supplier of it and managed to get a 25/lb bag for $1/lb which should last me a while.
-Happy Reefing
So I finally began to run low on the Baking Soda that I had been using and live in Podunk, BFE, but figured hey, we have a pool store, I should go get some Soda Ash and save some electricity. So I walk in, ask the manager/owner if they have any Soda Ash and he immediately looks at me cross-eyed. At this point I know I'm in trouble. He says they might and heads to the back.
He comes back out a few minutes later and tells me he can't find a bag of Soda Ash, but they do have Dolamite which he thinks might be what I'm looking for since he's never heard of soda ash.
So the good news is I found a supplier of Dolamite, sadly Calcium Magneseum Carbonate is not what I need to raise Alkalinity.
I'm already not making any progress so I figure I'll swing for the fences before leaving defeated. On a whim I say to him, "Hmm, do you guys have anything sodium carbonate or baking soda".
He says, "No we don't have baking soda but we do have Sodium Bicarbonate, that must be what you mean."
As any polite Southerner would do I looked at the bag and saw 100% purity looked at him and smiled and said, "Yup that's the stuff, can I get a bag."
By telling you guys this I hope to accomplish 2 things.
1. Posting a thread in the Chem forum outside the norm that hopefully some people find helpful.
2. Letting you folks know that if you live in areas like I do where it's hard to find anything, it helps to know exactly what you're looking for. Sodium Bicarbonate is Baking Soda for those who didn't know. So while I will still have to cook my baking soda, which I was hoping to avoid, I was able to find a supplier of it and managed to get a 25/lb bag for $1/lb which should last me a while.
-Happy Reefing
