Baking it converts bicarb to carb. Adding either of these will affect your pH for a few hours, but atmospheric CO2 will react through the water surface with whatever you add to establish an equilibrium between the bicarb and the carbonate (baked bicarb). The short of it... it doesn't matter what you add, in a few hours your pH will end up at the same point. Personally, I add a solution that has about 1 part carb to 7.5 parts bicarb. This works out to 50g carb:350g bicarb in each 4l jug (I use milk jugs). This is the only alk supplement I have used for years and it works out fine for me...
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Dan

Thanks for the insight Dan, you should start a tank journal would love to learn more.

I bake it because its more potent (almost double)so I mix up 5 gal of a solution at a time for my dosing pump
If I'm doing an adjustment(rare- my dosing pumps seem to be consistent over the long haul) I don't bother baking it just use reg. baking soda
My Ph probe on my controller doesn't really register a spike but I usually only adjust 0.5 DKH at a time

I might just do that :). You are always more than welcome to pm me and ask me to reply to a post. Or give me a call and get the detailed version... thumb typing on my iPhone takes a while and it is pretty much the only thing I use for forums.


Dan