Calcium/alkalinity products
 

Was wondering what brand everyone was using for for the 2 chemicals. What's a good liquid brand? I have a small tank so I don't buy powder and mix it.

seachem is good solid product

I use Dow Flake for Calcium and Armonhammer baking soda (not double baked) for my sodium bicarb.

I have used B-ionoc two part with good success

Fauna Marin

You already have baking soda in your kitchen. Half of your problem is solved without you needing to buy anything.

Unless I am reading this wrong, it sounds to me like you are not interested in mixing powders to make up two part? A lot of people just use baking soda for the alk part. You may or may not have that on hand in your kitchen already. I use alk and calc from BRS but again, those are powders and it sounds to me like you're not interested in using powders?

I don't bother with mixing powders either, just due to laziness. I used SeaChem Reef Complete and SeaChem Carbonate for a while without complaints. Currently using AquaVitro Calcification just because I got a bottle on sale... don't have a preference for either one as they are both SeaChem. I'm still on my last bottle of SeaChem Carbonate but have grabbed a bottle of SeaChem Fusion 2 because that was on sale... so that'll be my next bottle of carbonate.

As you can tell from the powders folks... the ions are the same... just use a reputable major brand like Kent or SeaChem and you should be getting the ions you want.

oh yeah, PS... when you're using liquid bottles, you're really paying a convenience premium on the price. So do take some time to look at the dosing per ml and price per ml (ie total treatment volume of the bottle for the price). So you're looking for maximum dosing efficacy per ml for the best price per ml, but I personally avoid lesser brands as they may or may not have more variance in their manufacturing quality control.

I'm not using powder because my tank is small so it doesn't really matter, every time you mix you need like a gallon of water. I'm using liquid for the sake of convenience and space saving. If I have a bigger tank then it would make sense to use powder no doubt.

Yes I can see that i would probably go liquid if i had a smaller tank. I must have overlooked that part of the original post when commenting. Although I find it quite easy and cheap with powder so once hitting that tipping point on tank size I would not hesitate in changing.

It is a valid approach. I don't know if I would bother to mix powders either if I had your size of tank :-)

False.

An Improved Do-it-Yourself Two-Part Calcium and Alkalinity Supplement System
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

The Reef Chemistry Calculator
http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

For instance I just used the calculator to calculate that it takes .9 tsp of baking soda to raise the alkalinity of a 20gal from 8 DKH to 10. Just under a tsp of baking soda can be dissolved in less than 1 cup of water. Its simple, inexpensive and better for the environment than buying small plastic bottles.