[john h]

hi all
ive read that bicarb is a gooh kh buffer and if it is i want to add it to my top up water to try and keep the level a little more stable.
firstly is it true? and secondly is there a specific type/brand or can you use any off the shelf supermarket stuff straight into the ro water ,also do i have my top up water at the required kh level or higher/lower than needed.
cheers john h.
ps any ideas on how much per litre

[ben]

i get a 2kg tub from boots for about a fiver. works a treat

[Tony B]

john h, on Jun 16 2009, 04:50 PM, said:

hi all
ive read that bicarb is a gooh kh buffer and if it is i want to add it to my top up water to try and keep the level a little more stable.
firstly is it true? and secondly is there a specific type/brand or can you use any off the shelf supermarket stuff straight into the ro water ,also do i have my top up water at the required kh level or higher/lower than needed.
cheers john h.
ps any ideas on how much per litre

Yes. I buy 500grms sodium bicarb from Boots for about £1.70, don't forget it will only boost your alkalinity and not your calcium.

To work out how much to dose, look at this: http://home.comcast....1/chemcalc.html select baking soda for your product if using sodium bicarb.

You can also buy in bulk from many other chemical retailers, labpack chemicals and justasoap are two good retailers I've used.

[john h]

hi all again!
what im trying to do (if it is poss) is put high levels of kh,ca and mg in my top up water so it doses slowly and consantly.
is this possible? mixing it in one water source? and how much can i put in? because there is more in the top up water than i can test for.im assuming that each time i make a fresh batch that if my tank levels are still dropping fast then i add a bit more until a slower drop off or a constant level is reached.
any info appreciated, i cant have more than one water container in the sump area so dosing seperately as in the balling method cant be done
cheers john

[ben]

not a good idea imo. you may need to adjust one level more than another and the reading would just be all over the place.

plus i think if you put calcium into RO water it will ruin it. see what the others say

[Dave.I]

Hi John,

No you cant mix them all into one container.Im running the balling method and it works brilliantly! However,before i started balling i used to have three small bottles.I used the same mixes as per balling light but added them manualy.Just make up a stock solution of sodium bicarb and ro in one bottle,calcium and ro in the second and if you want to bother with a mag bottle put that in bottle three.Then just add them in the morning and evening as needed.After a week or two you will work out how many ml of each you need to add per day.It realy does work.With regular testing you will have it dialed in in no time!

Dave

[john h]

ok cheers guys

[regal]

Yeah, please dont add ca,alk and mg boosting additive to your ro water or the same container for that matter, you'll precipitate most of it out in anyways.

You can add Ca and mg together if you want to.

Is cheap additive the reason you want to use this? is it only KH you want to boost?

Depending on what your ph is you can choose to either bake it or not. If your ph is low I suggest baking the bicarb(baking soda) for about an hour at around 150 deg C(300 deg F). This will drive off access co2 and water. If you're ph is stable and on the higher side 8.4+ I'd stick to using it as is. Just monitor your ph along with KH when doing this and dont add to much at a time, I dont know the size of your tank or your KH usage so wont really be able to help on dosing ideas. If you are dosing something like seachem, stick to the same quantities