Soda ash potency

[Crabs McJones]

@randyBRS @Ryanbrs
Have either of you heard anything on the recent bags of soda ash being more potent than usual? I got a 1 gallon bag of soda ash and made up a gallon of solution. And was dosing my normal amount only to see my alk shoot up past 10. I generally try to keep it around 8.5. Tonight it finally dropped down to 7.6, and I used the calculator on the site to bring it back up to 8.5, dosed the amount it said and checked again and my alk was at 9.1. Just wondering if you had heard anything from other users or customers.

Thanks :)
Crabs

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Following !

 

[AdamBRS Verified Sponsor]

Randy and I went to the warehouse this morning to look into this one for you. After talking with our production staff, they informed us that there have been no changes to the amount of powder in one bag of the pre-portioned soda ash. We spot weighed some bags at various locations in the warehouse and found them all to be within 0.05 lbs of each other, so there is a very slight variance. That said, 5 hundredths of a pound shouldn't make any noticeable difference in potency. We're going to mix a jug up and test it out none the less. I'll follow back up when I know more.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Randy and I went to the warehouse this morning to look into this one for you. After talking with our production staff, they informed us that there have been no changes to the amount of powder in one bag of the pre-portioned soda ash. We spot weighed some bags at various locations in the warehouse and found them all to be within 0.05 lbs of each other, so there is a very slight variance. That said, 5 hundredths of a pound shouldn't make any noticeable difference in potency. We're going to mix a jug up and test it out none the less. I'll follow back up when I know more.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it :)

 

[Captain Quint]

Following

 

[randyBRS]

I'm glad you brought this to our attention, thanks! @AdamBRS and I are on this first thing this morning. :) We're going to test the potency in a bit, but here's what we found so far.

1) Our packaging will only allow so much soda ash into the pouch and every single pouch is weighed by a team of two production guys. Adam and I spot tested the pouches on the picking line as well as from the hundreds in overflow and found that every single one (tested about 12 or so) weighed exactly 0.90-lbs.
2) Since switching to the pharma grade chems, our supply material hasn't changed.
3) There's only so much Soda Ash you can add to that volume of water for max potency without it falling out of solution and we measured our pouches to be at that max solubility (which should be somewhere around 5300dKH and what Adam and I are verifying now.)

Although I can't speculate as to why your specific tank elevated beyond your normal range, here's my thoughts on the accuracy of the calculator and our hobby grade test kits. I'm personally not good at estimating my total tank volume after displacement and sump level etc, so I usually account for some (+/-) difference in my estimation. Along with that, I also have to factor in the precision range of the Hanna checker which states is +/- 3dKH, meaning if test 8.0dKH, I could actually be somewhere in the 7.7dKH-8.3dKH range. Keeping these two things in mind, I would say that it is somewhat reasonable for the combo of the calculator and the results of the checker to be somewhat off.

All of that said, I couldn't speculate as to why you saw your Alk raise above normal levels (especially that far out of what you could reasonably account for in testing accuracy), but if it were my tank, I'd be pretty confident that it was caused by something other than a change in potency of the solution. I imagine you already did, but for the sake of others reading here I want to mention that whenever I get a weird reading, I try to make sure and measure again 2-3more times; then average them to verify the outcome and do the same the following day right at 24hrs later.

 

[Crabs McJones]

I'm glad you brought this to our attention, thanks! @AdamBRS and I are on this first thing this morning. :) We're going to test the potency in a bit, but here's what we found so far.

1) Our packaging will only allow so much soda ash into the pouch and every single pouch is weighed by a team of two production guys. Adam and I spot tested the pouches on the picking line as well as from the hundreds in overflow and found that every single one (tested about 12 or so) weighed exactly 0.90-lbs.
2) Since switching to the pharma grade chems, our supply material hasn't changed.
3) There's only so much Soda Ash you can add to that volume of water for max potency without it falling out of solution and we measured our pouches to be at that max solubility (which should be somewhere around 5300dKH and what Adam and I are verifying now.)

Although I can't speculate as to why your specific tank elevated beyond your normal range, here's my thoughts on the accuracy of the calculator and our hobby grade test kits. I'm personally not good at estimating my total tank volume after displacement and sump level etc, so I usually account for some (+/-) difference in my estimation. Along with that, I also have to factor in the precision range of the Hanna checker which states is +/- 3dKH, meaning if test 8.0dKH, I could actually be somewhere in the 7.7dKH-8.3dKH range. Keeping these two things in mind, I would say that it is somewhat reasonable for the combo of the calculator and the results of the checker to be somewhat off.

All of that said, I couldn't speculate as to why you saw your Alk raise above normal levels (especially that far out of what you could reasonably account for in testing accuracy), but if it were my tank, I'd be pretty confident that it was caused by something other than a change in potency of the solution. I imagine you already did, but for the sake of others reading here I want to mention that whenever I get a weird reading, I try to make sure and measure again 2-3more times; then average them to verify the outcome and do the same the following day right at 24hrs later.

Thanks Randy, I appreciate it :)
Just seemed odd to me. This would be my third jug of the new pharma mix. (And please don't get me wrong, I absolutely love BRS 2 part) I've dosed the same amount, but with this last mix up jug my alk has increased significantly. Nothing else has changed in the system. I use the hannah checker and the salifert checker to double check my levels just to make sure consistency. And both registered the high alk level. The calcium mix seems to have stayed the same though, so no issue there :)

Thanks again, this is what makes BRS such an awesome company :D

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I'm glad you brought this to our attention, thanks! @AdamBRS and I are on this first thing this morning. :) We're going to test the potency in a bit, but here's what we found so far.

1) Our packaging will only allow so much soda ash into the pouch and every single pouch is weighed by a team of two production guys. Adam and I spot tested the pouches on the picking line as well as from the hundreds in overflow and found that every single one (tested about 12 or so) weighed exactly 0.90-lbs.
2) Since switching to the pharma grade chems, our supply material hasn't changed.
3) There's only so much Soda Ash you can add to that volume of water for max potency without it falling out of solution and we measured our pouches to be at that max solubility (which should be somewhere around 5300dKH and what Adam and I are verifying now.)

Although I can't speculate as to why your specific tank elevated beyond your normal range, here's my thoughts on the accuracy of the calculator and our hobby grade test kits. I'm personally not good at estimating my total tank volume after displacement and sump level etc, so I usually account for some (+/-) difference in my estimation. Along with that, I also have to factor in the precision range of the Hanna checker which states is +/- 3dKH, meaning if test 8.0dKH, I could actually be somewhere in the 7.7dKH-8.3dKH range. Keeping these two things in mind, I would say that it is somewhat reasonable for the combo of the calculator and the results of the checker to be somewhat off.

All of that said, I couldn't speculate as to why you saw your Alk raise above normal levels (especially that far out of what you could reasonably account for in testing accuracy), but if it were my tank, I'd be pretty confident that it was caused by something other than a change in potency of the solution. I imagine you already did, but for the sake of others reading here I want to mention that whenever I get a weird reading, I try to make sure and measure again 2-3more times; then average them to verify the outcome and do the same the following day right at 24hrs later.

The only thing I changed was the new soda ash.
I’ve owned both tanks for five years and 2.5 respectively.

I’ve used ESV primaryily then TM and two orders of BRS diy using Red Sea alk test in that time. I took six weeks to adjust the dose on each switch save the last one as I belive I ordered the same product.
I’ve only encounterd this dose inconsistency on the second recent order.
I’ll double check I ordered the same soda ash the second time.

Fwiw , the second order of ash when dosed turns into snow flakes as it hit water where as he first did not.

 

[chefmur]

I have been using BRS soda ash for several months and also noticed an increase in AlK in my last batch. Had to back down on my dosing from 50ml a day to 40ml a day. I did also struggle with decrease in PH so that could be part of the reason.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Well, I ordered up another bag of Soda Ash, and Calcium Chloride and two new mixing jugs and pumps. Hopefully I just got a odd bag. We'll see :)

 

[Bulk Reef Supply Verified Sponsor]

Well, I ordered up another bag of Soda Ash, and Calcium Chloride and two new mixing jugs and pumps. Hopefully I just got a odd bag. We'll see :)

We did some testing after the last post, but really couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. Definitely let us know if you see anything strange and we can look into it again. Like Randy said, there is only so much Soda Ash that you can dissolve into a single gallon of solution and the weights of our pre-portioned bags haven't changed. On top of that, where we source the materials hasn't changed either, so I'm a little stumped as to why you're seeing the results you described.

 

[Crabs McJones]

We did some testing after the last post, but really couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. Definitely let us know if you see anything strange and we can look into it again. Like Randy said, there is only so much Soda Ash that you can dissolve into a single gallon of solution and the weights of our pre-portioned bags haven't changed. On top of that, where we source the materials hasn't changed either, so I'm a little stumped as to why you're seeing the results you described.

No worries, we'll just try another batch :) thank you very much for taking the time to look into this:)

 

[Crabs McJones]

I would like to follow up on this. I ordered another bag from BRS, mixed it up, and dosed and my alk has gone back down to its normal level with the same dosing amount. Must have just gotten a fluke bag or something. No big deal, thanks everyone for your help :)