Jestersix

Diy trident reagents.

phc567 said:
So over the years. This is what works for me. I estimate I have approximately 250 gallons. Since I live in San Francisco evaporation is constant. I’m guessing evaporation is about 2 gallons a day. I use a litremeter thru a Kalk stir. Then I dos Randy’s diy recipe. To make up the rest. Banking soda baked for a hour. Brs calcium. Magnesium is Randy’s diy. I keep alk around 9 cal 450 mag 1500. I check everything once a week with Hanna checkers. As of now I dos alk 52ml and cal 12ml. So I guess that’s more like 80/20ish. Mag I just check and dump it in as mag doesn’t move fast.
But it’s always been like this.
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Ok, thanks. So you are getting a significant amount of your Alk and Ca in balanced ratios from the Kalk before you adjust with adding carbonate or calcium directly. I don’t know how much exactly but probably significantly more than half given the numbers you said. I think Randy’s DIY is set up to dose equal amounts if I remember correctly.

This matters because say for example the kalk is supplying 80% of your Alk and Ca in balanced amounts. Then the differential you describe of 80% dosing balanced and 20% dosed 4:1 is really not that far off from dosing within 10% of balanced.
 
phc567 said:
2cups of soda ash to 1 gallon of water. I make 5 gallons at a time.
Calcium. I just follow Brs instructions on the package.
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Why are you not just buying both parts from BRS and saving the work. Have a stock pile of Baking Soda or something?

How much Kalk are you dosing? Like JVY said, if Kalk is doing 90% of the job and 2 part 10%, a 80/20 mix on the last 10% is really 53/47 when you weigh the average including the 90% by Kalk.
Also, your DIY receipt could also be slightly off as well depending on how accurate you are with it. You are measuring by Volume which is inherently inaccurate.
 
phc567 said:
2cups of soda ash to 1 gallon of water. I make 5 gallons at a time.
Calcium. I just follow Brs instructions on the package.
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BRS says 2.5 cups CaCl per gallon so roughly 170x2.5g/gal of that, and a cup of soda ash is about 180g/gallon and you’re doing 180x2g/gal. So you’re dosing 425g/gal*gal/3800ml=0.11g/ml CaCl, and .09g/ml soda ash?

I would have trouble dissolving 360g soda ash into one gallon of water - if you make 5 gal at a time, do you ever notice if some of the alk is sitting at the bottom of the mixing container? I’d not I’m interested in how you manage to mix it so well.
 
Chromis said:
BRS says 2.5 cups CaCl per gallon so roughly 170x2.5g/gal of that, and a cup of soda ash is about 180g/gallon and you’re doing 180x2g/gal. So you’re dosing 425g/gal*gal/3800ml=0.11g/ml CaCl, and .09g/ml soda ash?

I would have trouble dissolving 360g soda ash into one gallon of water - if you make 5 gal at a time, do you ever notice if some of the alk is sitting at the bottom of the mixing container? I’d not I’m interested in how you manage to mix it so well.
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Chromis said:
BRS says 2.5 cups CaCl per gallon so roughly 170x2.5g/gal of that, and a cup of soda ash is about 180g/gallon and you’re doing 180x2g/gal. So you’re dosing 425g/gal*gal/3800ml=0.11g/ml CaCl, and .09g/ml soda ash?

I would have trouble dissolving 360g soda ash into one gallon of water - if you make 5 gal at a time, do you ever notice if some of the alk is sitting at the bottom of the mixing container? I’d not I’m interested in how you manage to mix it so well.
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I use too have settlements when I did it by hand. But now I use a big tunze pump to mix it. It clears in about 5 minutes. It’s those old 6100. From back in the day. Very little residue if any.
 
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phc567 said:
I use too have settlements when I did it by hand. But now I use a big tunze pump to mix it. It clears in about 5 minutes. It’s those old 6100. From back in the day. Very little residue if any.
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Hmm maybe I’ll try a pump. I’ve been using a magnetic stir plate. Thanks!
 
phc567 said:
2cups of soda ash to 1 gallon of water. I make 5 gallons at a time.
Calcium. I just follow Brs instructions on the package.
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If you use RFH's recipe, it should workout to 1.4 cup soda ash to 1 gal btw.

He starts with 2 cups baking soda, and uses the resulting amount of soda ash after baking. If you use straight soda ash, the math works out to about 1.4 cups.
 
NanoCrazed said:
If you use RFH's recipe, it should workout to 1.4 cup soda ash to 1 gal btw.

He starts with 2 cups baking soda, and uses the resulting amount of soda ash after baking. If you use straight soda ash, the math works out to about 1.4 cups.
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That makes sense to me from the perspective that I have trouble mixing more than about 250g soda ash per gallon, and 1.4 cups works out to about 252g. Hmm
 
Chromis said:
That makes sense to me from the perspective that I have trouble mixing more than about 250g soda ash per gallon, and 1.4 cups works out to about 252g. Hmm
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Truth be told, the math works out a bit less than 1.4 cups... but 1.4 is easier to measure. :)

Mixes completely in 1G. sometimes sediments will settle right after mixing but will dissolve after some time.
 
Going back to the Trident, how many would trade in existing trident for one that swapped out Ca/Mg for PO4 and NO3?
 
I would get another unit to add on, but for me, seeing the 3 numbers assures me that the tank is working as needed. I would make the same arguments about p04 and n03 that they move slower than Ca and MG and thus need to be tested less.
 
Qwiv said:
Going back to the Trident, how many would trade in existing trident for one that swapped out Ca/Mg for PO4 and NO3?
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In my opinion Mg is pretty useless to be automated but Ca is nice to have automated (could use a lot less frequently). Even if you stop dosing Mg entirely in a high-consumption tank it takes 1-2 weeks to start to come down measurably, so what is the point of testing more often than it can possibly change?

P and N would both be great to have automated testing for. Those can really sneak up on you and cause trouble in my opinion. They are in a separate biochemistry category in my mind and also I believe would use a bit different technology to automatically test for, and so might require a different unit technically anyway.
 
JVU said:
so what is the point of testing more often than it can possibly change?
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I would be ok with testing mag 2-3x a week, but I understand the unit needs to run more often than that to stay clean and ensure reliable testing.

If that could be fixed, then yes, I would be ok testing mag 2-3x a week.
 
For @H2OPlayar and anyone else using the trident -how are you benchmarking the reliability? I think my Hanna alk checker is trashed and just the constant testing on alk lately is driving me bonkers.

It would be nice to be notified that something is amiss -of which recent something happened with the doser so that the alk dropped to 6.x

So I switched from tropic Marin’s carbocalcium which I liked as it “balanced” out the CA/ALK nicely to a bionics alk solution for now so at least I can see the ph spike” when it doses.

But I was at AC the other day and was seriously tempted to buy it right there and then. I was curious though about reliability and was going to ask about it on the forum anyway..
 
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