Standardizing ABC dosing to mesh RHF, TM and BRS’s recipes *with concentrations*

[Reefinmike]

I’ve been using randy’s recipe for many years and added Tropic marin’s part C 3 years ago. I also began toggling the alk additive between bicarbonate, soda ash and lye to finely tune and maintain a high; stable pH. Tropic marin’s recipe is very diluted- I would have to mix, store and dose over 15 gallons of chems per month to maintain my 150g display’s demands. TM said their part C can’t be concentrated but I found otherwise- crystal clear and stable at nearly 9x their recipe.

Anyhow, i went about creating my new standard(1.0X) using RHF’s articles as inspiration. It appears he’s shooting for slightly over 3.5 moles calcium per gallon and double that in carbonate equivalent. His recipe assumes that dow flake is 78.5% pure CaCl2. Not many are using dowflake today but instead BRS’s CaCl2 dihydrate. If the dihydrate is pure, it should be 75.5% CaCl2. My 1.0X solutions aim for 3.50 moles Ca per gallon. I referenced TM’s CaCl2tC ratio to get an accurate 1x number for part C.

Soda ash can be 2x concentrated and lye can be well over 10x. I definitely don’t recommend that. Instead; i prefer all my alk additives at 0.5x and Cal/ptC at 5X. This makes dosing easy. For every 100ml alk my tank demands I need to match it with 10.0ml A/C. Plus a 5g bucket of 5x lasts over 7 months

Hope this helps clarify things for people confused by all the different numbers.

Bonus tip: 2572.5g CaCl2 and 2660ml rodi should make exactly 1 gallon of solution. 812.5g ptC and 3420ml rodi should make exactly 1 gallon.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

This is awesome. I was just wondering about the part C amounts as it relates to the various 2 part recipes just yesterday. You have found that the Part C does not precipitate at higher concentrations? Have you tried adding the K+ and A- elements to your Ca and Alk solutions? Did you have any issues with those precipitating at the higher concentrations that you have calculated.

Once the community has provided feedback, especially Randy, it would be cool to convert this to a Google sheet so that it can be used by all. Great work!

Dennis

 

[Reefinmike]

This is awesome. I was just wondering about the part C amounts as it relates to the various 2 part recipes just yesterday. You have found that the Part C does not precipitate at higher concentrations? Have you tried adding the K+ and A- elements to your Ca and Alk solutions? Did you have any issues with those precipitating at the higher concentrations that you have calculated.

Once the community has provided feedback, especially Randy, it would be cool to convert this to a Google sheet so that it can be used by all. Great work!

Dennis

I have not tried adding the A/K simply because it’s way too cost prohibitive. It would cost more than all the other additives combined last time I did the math using the liquid additives.
I used the google spreadsheet but to be honest I’m pretty tech ignorant.
* I do have one mistake to point out and correct- Randy’s New high pH two part recipe calls for 283 g NaOH per gallon(which aligns with his 7.07 moles/gal approach). I accidentally listed it as 280g matching my 1X.

 

[Reefinmike]

This is awesome. I was just wondering about the part C amounts as it relates to the various 2 part recipes just yesterday. You have found that the Part C does not precipitate at higher concentrations? Have you tried adding the K+ and A- elements to your Ca and Alk solutions? Did you have any issues with those precipitating at the higher concentrations that you have calculated.

Once the community has provided feedback, especially Randy, it would be cool to convert this to a Google sheet so that it can be used by all. Great work!

Dennis

And yes, absolutely no issues with part c precipitating or re-crystalizing at 5X strength(8.95x TM recipe). I’ve had solutions mixed up for over a month and no changes! It mixes clear just as fast as the super low concentrations.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks for posting this.

In general, my Recipe #1 calcium part is 37,000 ppm calcium.

Original Balling Liquid is 20,000 ppm calcium.

An Improved Do-it-Yourself Two-Part Calcium and Alkalinity Supplement System by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

Balling Liquid Set | Produktinformationen

www.tropic-marin-smartinfo.com

Thus, since Balling original liquids are designed to be 1:1:1 (A:B:C) dosing, then to use the Balling Part C liquid to my recipe, the dose would be 1:1:37/20 = 1:1:1.85 (that is, 1.85 times as much part C as the other two)

My recipe #2 is half as strong to account for lower bicarbonate solubility, sot eh dosing would be 1:1:0.93