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Re-mineral tropic issue

jivemonkey

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Re-Mineral Tropic
The product label says "one level measuring spoon for 15 1/4 US gal of water (results in approx 7°dh total. hardness and raises the alkalinity by approx 4°dh). Dosing calculator. Scan the QR code on the packaging."

I scan the QR code, it takes me to their Tropic Marin
website that says "A level measuring spoon (5 ml) in 15 l water (results in approx. 7 °dH total hardness and approx. 4 °dH carbonate hardness, depending on the starting water)."

15 l is not the same as 15 1/4 US gal. so which is right!
 
It's 15L / 4US Gallons ;) - It's an L not a 1.

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Hi all,
"one level measuring spoon for 15 1/4 US gal of water (results in approx 7°dh total. hardness and raises the alkalinity by approx 4°dh).
I had a look a the web site and I couldn't help noticing that the <"cheapest I could find"> was 250g for a scarcely credible £11.26! If you call that £11 that is still £44 a kilo <"for salts"> that will cost pennies.

Have a look at <"What Remineralisers are you using ?">

I don't know which salts the Tropic Marin mix contains, but because it says it "doesn't contain NaCl", rather than "doesn't contain sodium", so I'll bet that it contains sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3). Potassium bicarbonate is much better for a planted tank (plants don't need sodium (Na)), but sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) is cheaper to buy as a salt.

If you want to <"DIY your own mix"> you can do it using <"potassium bicarbonate"> (KHCO3), <"magnesium sulphate"> (MgSO4.7H2O) and <"calcium chloride (CaCl2.6H20)">. All of these are available from ebay etc as food or pharmaceutical grade.

The IFC calculator also includes <"a re-mineralising sheet"> to make things super easy.

cheers Darrel
 
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There's one more issue with branded remineralizers.
If they add alkalinity, what salts are included? CaCO3 and MgCO3 are poorly (slowly) soluble. That would make customers perplexed. So, the manufacturers resort to potassium and sodium carbonates. Sodium is largely unwelcome. Potassium is an important nutrient, no doubt, but should be dosed in reasonable relation to calcium and magnesium. That means that you can add only small amount of carbonates (KH) if you stick with soluble salts and at the same time maintain reasonable ratio among cations. Manufacturers mostly take the way of overdosing potassium, sometimes even sodium.
I've made plenty of mineralizing calculations as I'm using RODI water for years already. I can tell you there's no way to do it properly - if you care for alkalinity 1°dKH and higher - without using poorly soluble salts (CaCO3 and/or MgCO3).
I conclude: branded blends of salts are not only prohibitively expensive but also bad. You may argue that sodium or mild excess of potassium would not do that much harm. True, they often don't. However, if a hobbyist goes this not-that-simple way of using RODI water and completely mineralizing it, I'd suppose he/she cares for some more demanding species. With them, an unbalanced ratio of metal cations is often the source of nutrition related defects.
 
thanks guys, I was reading about branded versus buy your own and thinking it was very very expensive branded so looking at making my own now so think I will use what I have while I work out what to move to. I was told seachem re mineralise also adds plant nutrients as a plus, so. Guess I need to work out a mix and calculation for making up 3 x 25 litre drums a week for my 350litre tank as change about 20% a week water.

My tap water is very very hard and gh and KH also very high, would use in part but nitrate seems to vary between about 20 to 40 a lot with spikes when it's very high (at least according to two seperate nitrate test kits use)
 
Hi all,
I was told seachem re mineralise also adds plant nutrients as a plus
Yes it will add plant nutrients, but it will also do this if you make your own up. It doesn't matter where an ion has come from.

Plants can only take up nutrients as ions, and all potassium ions (K+) are the same. When you add potassium bicarbonate (KHCO3) the bicarbonate ion (HCO3-) is what we measure as "dKH" (really alkalinity), and the K+ ion is one of the three macronutrients that plants need most of.

Same with dGH, the magnesium (Mg++) and calcium (Ca ++) ions we add are measured as the dGH, but they are also plant nutrients.
My tap water is very very hard and gh and KH also very high, would use in part but nitrate seems to vary between about 20 to 40 a lot with spikes when it's very high (at least according to two seperate nitrate test kits use)
Get some figures from your water company, but I'll tell you that the nitrate content doesn't matter, you are only going to need to add 5% or 10% tap to remineralise your RO.

Because it is a chalk aquifer the water will add 1 : 1 dGH to dKH and all the divalent ions (dGH) will be calcium (Ca++) for <"geological reasons">.

cheers Darrel
 
all potassium ions (K+) are the same.
From here, it seems that the 'best' potassium is the Japanese variety produced by ADA.:D
(I wonder if they make it from Belarussian potash, or the Russian one, perhaps...)
 
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