This was on but deleted when the site upgraded... well assuming Red Sea didn’t delete it!! Lol
What I’m writing now, is regarding changing the foundation element dosing chemicals for the Red Sea S650. The big tank uses a calcium reactor so apart from occasional adjustments, it’s not affected
I currently use the Red Sea (RS) Foundation elements A B and C, 1 kg powders mixed into solutions which cost around £26 for a 1kg box. An alkalinity box which makes 10 litres of solution lasts around 6 weeks or thereabouts in the S650 which ‘drinks it’
I’ve been researching this some more, and actually for some time, in particular looking at the actual ingredients in the RS powders which are as follows according the ingredients listed on the boxes, pictures below.
A - calcium - ingredients calcium chloride, strontium chloride - it’s supposed to have barium but no mention in the ingredients so it must be trace
B - alkalinity - ingredients sodium hydrogen carbonate - this is exactly the same as sodium bicarbonate or baking soda
C - magnesium - ingredients magnesium chloride - not a 7:1 blend of chloride/sulphate like seawater, just chloride according to the ingredients list
Interestingly, the alkalinity is not shown as being ‘sodium carbonate‘ ie., sodium bicarbonate after being baked for an hour, because of the affect on pH. It’s mentioned in the science article at the end.
So then, apart from the branding and ‘feeling safe‘, why am I paying £26 for these in RS boxes when I can buy the exact same chemicals from a well know ‘jungle site’ for peanuts. I’m not knocking RS here by the way, it’s a business and provides its own branded products, I don’t have an issue with that at all. It’s just when you dump a single 1kg box of magnesium powder in one hit, into the big tank to ‘’just partially’ increase the level, it sort of focused my mind a little. Infact something ‘twisted’! Lol
So my version
A 5 kg Calcium chloride Dihydrate 77% food grade £8.38
B 5 kg sodium bicarbonate 100% BP/food grade £12.99. (I’m not going to bake this to turn it into carbonate at least for the first time)
C 8 kg magnesium chloride flakes Dead Sea salts 100% pure £16.99
5 kg magnesium sulphate 100% pharmaceutical/food grade £9.99
So for the A and B I’m just going to mix them into the same ratios shown in the picture below using 1 kg of each powder mixed with RODI
For the C I’m going to mix in the ratio of 7:1 chloride/sulphate to maintain the correct ionic balance. Interesting the RS version doesn’t show sulphate is in it but... I’ve just made one up but added a bit more liquid to help it dissolve and I used 901g of chloride and 124g of sulphate in 2.2 litres of water instead of the RS 1.7. In the next batch I will reduce to 2 litres just because my container is only 2.5l so with the powder I had to throw a bit away. But at this price who cares!
In the big tank, after adding £26 of foundation C (1kg) Mg was at 1320 and I wanted it around 1350. Using my solution I assumed a volume of 1400 litres (which turns out to be an excellent guess!) actual water after displacement, because there is a lot of rock. I added the exact amount of my solution to get there, tested it the next day and it was exactly 1350.
Now I realise that the RS alkalinity supplement contains a little strontium and it also mentions barium. I’m still doing 10% water changes and these are at trace element levels in sea water especially barium, so I will assume these will be added to the system from the water changes. I might actually get some Seachem Advantage strontium powder and just add some occasionally. That costs about £9 but I shouldn’t need much if any.
As far as the actually dosing of the elements is concerned, I’m just going to leave the amounts the same as with the RS versions and then adjust as necessary following testing
So anyone reading this, please feel free to highlight any issues or potential pitfalls, errors, etc., but I can’t think of any, well yet anyway.
Here’s some science, the second one talks about strontium