Two-Part Dosing and You

[PrangeWay]

So I've always used 2-part in my 3 ft tanks. When I setup my new 120 I moved the reefdoser over, and picked up 2 1-gal C-Balance bottles to tide me through while I decided if I wanted to upgrade to a CRX. Well I'm dosing ALOT of 2-part to maintain values, 130ml a day. So I went looking at CRX's, but right before I blew a grand on everything I decided to do a quick run down and make sure it was going to be worth the cash...



Needless to say I'll be placing an order with BRS, If I use 2.5gal jugs the life before being hassled with a refill woudl be 75 days instead of an annoying 30. Might also buy a warner set just to shake things up a bit.

Hope this helps people!


PW

[landlord]

Is the hassle you mention, the process of mixing up a new batch?

Kurt

[PrangeWay]

Is the hassle you mention, the process of mixing up a new batch?

I had a big order from BRS I used for past few years, it was the old "cook in oven" method. Luckily you don' t need to do this anymore, so that's a plus for sure.

I think the costs per year are pretty intersting though, it gives an interesting picture of how some of the 2 parts should never, ever be used (ie B-Ionic).


PW

[carolina reefer]

Thank you! Great information.

[corbett_n]

great chart, helped me out

[luther1200]

Could you explain that chart a little better? According to the reef calculator B-Ionic is more potent than C-Balance, and you show the opposite if I'm reading correctly.

What is the value for the first row? What does the 128.5,347,etc. stand for?

I just don't understand how a more potent product that is actually cheaper than another could be about 3x more expensive.

According to the reef calculator B-Ionic is almost twice as strong as C-Balance, so it should be slightly more than half of what C-Balance cost. Unless I messed up.

[PrangeWay]

Could you explain that chart a little better? According to the reef calculator B-Ionic is more potent than C-Balance, and you show the opposite if I'm reading correctly.

The first row is ml of product. This is based on my tank 120gallon, 130ml is what I dose everyday to maintain calc/alk. I than used the reef chemistry calculator to determine how many ml of each of the other products I'd need for the same effect. Ie B-Ionic is less potent according to the caclulator (ie I need more B-Ionic to maintain the same conditions).

3rd row is ml per bottle (either their 2L or 1gal size)

5th row is the price per bottle.

7th row is the cost per ml of that bottle

10th row is the cost per ml * the ml I actually needed (row 3).


I was actually worried abou the sheer volume of B-Ionic the caclulator said I needed. But on 2 different computers, both flash and traditional version it always gave the same answer... To make matter worse I couldn't find anywhere where B-Ionic acutally stated it's ppm for comparsion (ie Kents is like 60,000, and Seachems 150,000). and verification.

The neatest thing was how concentrated the Seachem stuff is, I mean it is over x2 stronger than the next.


PW

[luther1200]

Thats funny. I put into the reef calculator that I wanted to raise Ca from 300 to 400 in a 100 gallon tank. It said I would need 1000ml of C-balance and 625 ml of B-Ionic.


But I just did it again using the Bicarbonat B-Ionic which is only if you need a low pH version and it said I would need 2500ml. But very few people use that version, and the commonly talked about version that 99% of people use is the other 1.


So B-Ionic would be roughly 62% the cost of C-Balance. So if you calculated it to be arounf $400, B-Ionic would be roughly $248 dollars a year. Which sounds a lot more like it.

[luther1200]

Here is a link to the reef chemistry calculator if anybody doesn't have it yet.
http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html