New alk supplement

[asylumdown]

Is anyone here using the new Coral Grow additives?

I switched to baking soda for my dKH a while back and I'm kind of lazy so I've been playing around with concentrations to minimize the number of times a month I need to make new solution and with baking soda I could dissolve about 3.5 cups in a gallon of warm water. 4 cups and it would super-saturate and spontaneously precipitate like snow when the water cooled off to room temp (clogging my dosing pump in the process).

I just switched to my first bag of the Coral Grow bicarbonate additive and started off with 3 cups per gallon. After 10 minutes of mixing it was the consistency and colour of a melting milkshake, with a thick, grainy foam. Even diluting it by half wasn't enough to make it dissolve completely.

After 24 hours my 1.5 cups/gallon solution of the Coral Grow on the same dosing volume as my 3.5 cups/gallon baking soda has actually increased my alkalinity by 0.3 meq/L. That's actually great as I can extend the life of one batch of solution, but I'm a little confused. I thought bicarbonate was bicarbonate? How is baking soda so much less concentrated? Am I missing something fundamental here?