I use Triton Core7, but my tank uses more of the Alk than the other components. So I wind up sometimes running just the soda ash without the others, or more soda ash than the others, but either approach uses up the Alk component faster than the others. Unfortunately you can’t buy just the Alk component.
So instead I just switch over to dosing only BRS soda ash when the Ca starts rising, and then switch back to Core7 when it’s in range again a few days later. One problem with this approach is that the BRS instructions (based on RHF’s recipes) are way more dilute than Core7, so I have modify the dosing amounts up and down when I switch them, which is annoying.
So instead I set out to figure out how to make a soda ash solution with BRS material to match the alkalinity of the Core7 component, 9750 dKH (= 3482 meq/L). After some sleuthing and some math I determined the Core7 recipe is about 1.8 times as concentrated as the BRS recipe. I was concerned that it might not stay in solution at the higher concentration mostly because I figured there was a good reason why RHF didn’t make his recipes more concentrated. I found some superficial “Because I said so” type of discussion saying there were good reasons but no helpful details online in R2R.
The higher concentration works out to about 686 g/gallon (181 g/L) soda ash in RO water. Extrapolating from solubility curves for sodium carbonate (soda ash) shows that that concentration should be soluble at about 62F and warmer if my assumptions are correct. I made up a gallon of it, it went into solution easily at room temp and has stayed in solution fine for a week or so, so far. Of course it’s summer now and not getting below 62F, so we’ll see if it stays that way in the winter. I don’t know for sure that the Core7 alk component is just soda ash, they may have added something else for increased solubility like NaOH. But it behaves the same as the soda ash when I use it as far as pH effect etc, and didn’t come with any special warning labels like I would think would be required with NaOH.
I mostly just wanted to throw this out there since I couldn’t find anyone posting directly about it after quite a bit of searching online. I tried it and it works well.
So instead I just switch over to dosing only BRS soda ash when the Ca starts rising, and then switch back to Core7 when it’s in range again a few days later. One problem with this approach is that the BRS instructions (based on RHF’s recipes) are way more dilute than Core7, so I have modify the dosing amounts up and down when I switch them, which is annoying.
So instead I set out to figure out how to make a soda ash solution with BRS material to match the alkalinity of the Core7 component, 9750 dKH (= 3482 meq/L). After some sleuthing and some math I determined the Core7 recipe is about 1.8 times as concentrated as the BRS recipe. I was concerned that it might not stay in solution at the higher concentration mostly because I figured there was a good reason why RHF didn’t make his recipes more concentrated. I found some superficial “Because I said so” type of discussion saying there were good reasons but no helpful details online in R2R.
The higher concentration works out to about 686 g/gallon (181 g/L) soda ash in RO water. Extrapolating from solubility curves for sodium carbonate (soda ash) shows that that concentration should be soluble at about 62F and warmer if my assumptions are correct. I made up a gallon of it, it went into solution easily at room temp and has stayed in solution fine for a week or so, so far. Of course it’s summer now and not getting below 62F, so we’ll see if it stays that way in the winter. I don’t know for sure that the Core7 alk component is just soda ash, they may have added something else for increased solubility like NaOH. But it behaves the same as the soda ash when I use it as far as pH effect etc, and didn’t come with any special warning labels like I would think would be required with NaOH.
I mostly just wanted to throw this out there since I couldn’t find anyone posting directly about it after quite a bit of searching online. I tried it and it works well.
