Dowflake for calcium??
 

Have seen and read a lot of mixed reviews on this stuff saying it used to be good in the past but now contains bromium. Was gonna go buy some until I read this. What are other people's concensus on this and is there possibly a safer alternative that is relatively cheap? Or should I just go to JL and buy their schlobster calcium chloride?

As long as you perform regular water changes there will never be a buildup of bromide to worry about
Plus you will probably use slightly less of the Xtra as it's more potent than it's predecessor
I gleaned this straight from Randy Holmes-Farley in one of his posts on RC

Ok greg thats good to know im doing weekly water changes at 10-15% so i guess i should be fine and really im just looking to top up my calcium as i use Kalk to maintain it.

I see home hardware has it but for some reason they have it listed as quickcrete heh which it totally is not. Anyways ill swing by there today to pick it up.

Well **** called the home hardware by me and apparently they dont have it in stock =( . Guess ill just buy the 3kg stuff from JL to start.

In this case, QUIKRETE is the manufacturer so no worries, you're not buying a bag of quick-set :smile:
But, it you leave enough air in the bag, it may quickly turn into a concrete-like substance :surprise:

I used my vacuum packer and sealed up 40 500gram bags

I ordered mine from the Hastings/Gilmore store and they had it in less than one week
If you need some tonight, PM me and you can give it back when you buy some

I like supporting J&L, but this is cheaper by far

yeh no rush on the calcium really but thanks for the offer Greg. Im just looking to get a bit higher numbers and then im actually thinking about going back to instant ocean salt and just buffering the salt myself with calc/alk/mag as its still way cheaper then reef crystals and im not liking the brown residue that takes over my salt barrel.

I have thought about giving ddh20cean salt a try but I dont know if its worth the price in the end.

I'm using regular IO and in my 105g total system I'm now only using $30/yr in supplements. I used to spend close to $150/yr on dosing and as you can gather, the savings will pay for 2/3 of my salt usage as a bucket lasts me approx 2 months

The brown residue is apparently clay and is used to stabilize the salt so it doesn't clump
I used to get a lot of it when I was mixing my salt in warm water, but it's stopped since I started mixing my salt into cool water before turning on the heater
I used to use a brine shrimp net in my NSW before adding it to the DT 'cause it was that bad

I've seen no evidence of the clay in my DT system and get very little residue in my NSW tank now so I guess it just went into oblivion ....

Using regual IO do you bring the elements of your salt mix up to your tanks paramaters using calc/alk/mag supps??

If so approx how much of each are you using to get to what paramaters??

Yup, I've been dosing my NSW 'cause lately my IO has gone for a poop
The Ca and Mg have dropped over the last year

I test each new bucket for the first couple mixes to be sure it's stable/accurate, then I use the Reef Chemistry Calculator for a starting point and do some math from there
I've found lately that I need to boost my Ca a bit, and my Mag a whole bunch;
I've been using up some Brightwell's Magnesion-P powder and add 38.1mls/12g of NSW, and also 1tsp of Dowflake
This is working for me with my dosing pumps using Randy's 2-part and I'm able to keep a decent 7.5/420/1350-1380 weekly with a 10% WC

I don't recommend Dowflake for aquarium use as it has too many impurities. It is only guaranteed to be about 37% calcium chloride and in my experience seldom mixes clear and leaves a greyish brown sludge. I used it for years without issue but it eventually caught up with me.