Switch from RS foundation to Randy’s recipe

[kynan]

Hi, long time reefer. Used to run a 300g old school SPS dominant tank ( till a catastrophic seam blow out AGA-DD). Back in the game after retirement and move south, now have a RS S1000 (265 total volume).

Used to run a calcium reactor and had Randy’s recipie in 5 g water jugs for when things were out of sync. Now I’m doing the whole dosing thing with RS dosers in my mixed reef( with plans for majority SPS. I’m using 65ml of RS foundation b liquids per day. ( and 35 ml of foundation A fwiw) At $100 for a 5l jug that lasts just 2.5 months, it’s getting costly. So I’d like to switch to Baking soda again. Looking for a dosing equivalent of RS F-b to the baked baking soda recipe once in solution. Also I recall there would always be stuff at the bottom of the containers, so I would shake before using. With dosing what is there to worry about with clogged dosers or a stronger concentration at the bottom of the container? I suppose I could just put a maxi jet in a 5g bucket of solution to keep it stirred? Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[BairCorals]

Why not kalkwasser?

 

[kynan]

I’ve always found kalkwasser to be a mess to deal with, stirrers always fail etc. I’d rather set my MTC pro cal reactor back up than deal with that.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There should be no substantial precipitate on the bottom of dosing containers using my recipes, and if there is, there's no desirability of dosing it.

The alk part of my DIY Recipe #1 will need 1.9 times as much as Red Sea Foundation B

The calcium part of my DIY recipe #1 will need 5.4 times as much as Red Sea Foundation A
(which shows that red sea is not trying to make a 1:1 product).

 

[BairCorals]

I’ve always found kalkwasser to be a mess to deal with, stirrers always fail etc. I’d rather set my MTC pro cal reactor back up than deal with that.

Interesting, I've never had any mess with mine, just a 2little fishes one, and it'll go a long way. But to each their own, million ways to skin a cat

 

[kynan]

There should be no substantial precipitate on the bottom of dosing containers using my recipes, and if there is, there's no desirability of dosing it.

The alk part of my DIY Recipe #1 will need 1.9 times as much as Red Sea Foundation B

The calcium part of my DIY recipe #1 will need 5.4 times as much as Red Sea Foundation A
(which shows that red sea is not trying to make a 1:1 product).

Thanks Randy, much appreciated.

 

[kynan]

Interesting, I've never had any mess with mine, just a 2little fishes one, and it'll go a long way. But to each their own, million ways to skin a cat

Perhaps you are running smaller total gallons than I was at the time, anywhere from 360 to 650 gallons of interconnected tanks and sumps. I also had SPS growing from top to bottom ( days of frags being measured in inches, not mm.)

 

[BairCorals]

Yeah wayyyyyyy smaller, only 70gal total system lol. At that point I'd just go Calc reactor. Any type of dosing is going to be a pocket book and a half to keep up with. I had watched a reefbum episode with Chris mekley from aci, he runs saturated kalk in a drum and a Calc reactor to pickup the slack. Ph boost will be amazing and the backup of having the reactor just makes sense to me. Cheap way of running but again there's so many ways to skin a cat