BRS Bicarbonate to Ash

Coastie Reefer · Jun 8, 2019

So I mistakenly bought a 7lb bag of bicarbonate from BRS instead of Soda Ash... I’m assuming I could just bake into ash?

Flippers4pups · Jun 8, 2019

If it's straight bicarbonate, yes.

redfishbluefish · Jun 8, 2019

Yes, you can simple bake the sodium bicarbonate to convert to sodium carbonate. If you're using BRS strength solutions (Randy Holmes Farley Recipe), simply spread 2 1/4 cups of the bicarbonate on a cookie sheet and bake at 350F for an hour. You'll end up with approximately 2 cups of the carbonate. Mix to one gallon with RO/DI and you'll have you're alk portion. I talk about making these solutions HERE.

Dkeller_nc · Jun 8, 2019

If you're not looking to increase your tank's pH, you can dispense with the baking of the sodium bicarb and simply use it at double the rate that you'd use for sodium carbonate. One caution about baking - either do it in a glass casserole dish, or on a cookie sheet/pan that doesn't have an anti-stick coating on it. Depending on what that anti-stick coating is, baking sodium bicarb into sodium carb can damage it.

Coastie Reefer · Jun 8, 2019

Flippers4pups said:
If it's straight bicarbonate, yes.

As far as I know that’s all it should be.

redfishbluefish said:
Yes, you can simple bake the sodium bicarbonate to convert to sodium carbonate. If you're using BRS strength solutions (Randy Holmes Farley Recipe), simply spread 2 1/4 cups of the bicarbonate on a cookie sheet and bake at 350F for an hour. You'll end up with approximately 2 cups of the carbonate. Mix to one gallon with RO/DI and you'll have you're alk portion. I talk about making these solutions HERE.

Awesome. Thanks for the link.

Dkeller_nc said:
If you're not looking to increase your tank's pH, you can dispense with the baking of the sodium bicarb and simply use it at double the rate that you'd use for sodium carbonate. One caution about baking - either do it in a glass casserole dish, or on a cookie sheet/pan that doesn't have an anti-stick coating on it. Depending on what that anti-stick coating is, baking sodium bicarb into sodium carb can damage it.

Thanks for the tip. I’m actually looking to boost ph a little. Just bought the wrong bag by mistake.

Coastie Reefer · Jun 8, 2019

Another question. Would it hurt to bake it in a disposable aluminum pan? I have several laying around in the pantry.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jun 9, 2019

Coastie Reefer said:
Another question. Would it hurt to bake it in a disposable aluminum pan? I have several laying around in the pantry.

As long as it is totally dry, that's OK.

Dkeller_nc · Jun 9, 2019

I wouldn't suggest it. Randy's right in that if there's no water around, the effect would be minimal. But as you can see from this chemical compatibility chart, aluminum is severely affected by sodium carbonate/bicarbonate, and given how inexpensive a glass casserole dish is, and the fact that we'd like to keep aluminum out of our reef tanks as much as is reasonably possible, I wouldn't do it.

Note that sodium carbonate/bicarbonate has absolutely no effect on humans, and there will be no residual chemical on a glass baking dish after it's washed, so there's no reason to avoid using kitchen equipment.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jun 9, 2019

Dkeller_nc said:
I wouldn't suggest it. Randy's right in that if there's no water around, the effect would be minimal. But as you can see from this chemical compatibility chart, aluminum is severely affected by sodium carbonate/bicarbonate, and given how inexpensive a glass casserole dish is, and the fact that we'd like to keep aluminum out of our reef tanks as much as is reasonably possible, I wouldn't do it.

Note that sodium carbonate/bicarbonate has absolutely no effect on humans, and there will be no residual chemical on a glass baking dish after it's washed, so there's no reason to avoid using kitchen equipment.

I don't disagree.

Lukas75 · Jun 9, 2019

At the same time it's BRS, you can always return it for the right stuff.

Coastie Reefer · Jun 9, 2019

Lukas75 said:
At the same time it's BRS, you can always return it for the right stuff.

But most likely I’d pay restocking fee and such. My mistake so I’m just going to do what I need to do to make it myself. Honestly I may even start making my own Alk supplement because it would be much cheaper. Not that 23 bucks is expensive but 8 bucks for 12lb bag of baking soda vs 23 bucks for 7 lbs of soda ash is enough to make me do it myself.

Lukas75 · Jun 9, 2019

Coastie Reefer said:
But most likely I’d pay restocking fee and such. My mistake so I’m just going to do what I need to do to make it myself. Honestly I may even start making my own Alk supplement because it would be much cheaper. Not that 23 bucks is expensive but 8 bucks for 12lb bag of baking soda vs 23 bucks for 7 lbs of soda ash is enough to make me do it myself.

They've never charged me a restocking fee.