Post your DIY additives here!

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 29, 2020

Darsh said:
Is that the same as "Sodium tetraborate decahydrate"?

yes. Decahydrate means 10 water molecules.

Darsh · Feb 29, 2020

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
yes. Decahydrate means 10 water molecules.

Thanks Randy! I was more confused about the "tetra" part though

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 29, 2020

FWIW, this is from wikipedia:

Borax - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate"

and they have a picture that shows how the tetra (4 ) borate part works:

Rick Strauss · Jul 12, 2020

I’ve been looking. Anybody have a recipe for potassium chloride to up my potassium?

Rick Strauss · Jul 13, 2020

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 14, 2020

Use this calculator, pick the entry for potassium from potassium nitrate, and use 74% of the dosed amount (so 74 mL if it says 100 mL).

James' Planted Tank - Dosing Calculator

Rick Strauss · Jul 14, 2020

Perfect thanks

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 15, 2020

You're welcome.

Happy Reefing.

AlbertGF · Mar 22, 2021

Hi,

After reading this thread I tried to do a list with all additives that I found in Triton and Aquaforest and to write the chemical formula beside.

Can anyone check if the formulas I wrote are correct?. I mean that I want to be sure that I am not writing down some molecules that are incompatible with reef life.

I am not asking for quantities or grams or moles or nothing like that, neither asking if I should add those additives to the tank. I'm only asking if those molecules are good as reef tank additives or not. After that I will calculate weights, moles and doses.

Another question I have is that I found that some elements can appear in many different molecules, how can I know which should I use? For example Lithium, it appears in Li2SO4, LiCl and LiCO3. How can I know which of these is best as additive? Do I have to look for the solubility? Or is there any form of these that is more toxic than the others? Or simply I have to look for the availability and price?

Thank you so much!

Aquaforest	Triton

Barium		BaS	BaCl2*2(H2O)	BaCO3
Boron	Boron	H3BO3
Bromine	Bromine	KBr
Calcium	Calcium
Chromium	Chromium	CrCl3*6(H2O)
Cobalt	Cobalt	CoCl2*6(H2O)
Fluorine	Fluorine	NaF
Iodine	Iodine	KI
Iron	Iron	FeSO4*7(H2O)
KH
Lithium	Lithium	Li2SO4	LiCl	Li2CO3
Magnesium	Magnesium	MgSO4*7(H2O)	MgCl2*6(H2O)
Manganese	Manganese	MnSO4*1(H2O)
Molybdenum	Molybdenum	Na2MoO4
Nickel	Nickel	NiSO4*6(H2O)	NiCl2
Potassium	Potassium	KCl
Rubidium		RbCl
Strontium	Strontium	SrCl2*6(H2O)
	Sulphur
Vanadium	Vanadium	NaVO3
Zinc	Zinc	ZnSO4*7(H2O)	ZnCl2

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 22, 2021

AlbertGF said:
Another question I have is that I found that some elements can appear in many different molecules, how can I know which should I use? For example Lithium, it appears in Li2SO4, LiCl and LiCO3. How can I know which of these is best as additive? Do I have to look for the solubility? Or is there any form of these that is more toxic than the others? Or simply I have to look for the availability and price?

For anyone interested in dosing DIY chemicals, the critical first step is to determine what form any particular element takes in seawater. That information is available in many places, such as the book "Chemical Oceanography" by Millero.

Some elements take many forms, so then one needs to dig even deeper and understand which forms are most useful to organisms and which ones might be toxic. Iodine is a good example, which is naturally present as iodide (I-), iodate, IO3-, and a large number of lower concentration organic and inorganic forms. Iodide, while not the highest concentration form (iodate is), is more bioavailable and the one that I recommend dosing (if one chooses to dose iodine, whether it is useful or not is a different question).

N.Sreefer · Mar 22, 2021

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
For anyone interested in dosing DIY chemicals, the critical first step is to determine what form any particular element takes in seawater. That information is available in many places, such as the book "Chemical Oceanography" by Millero.

Some elements take many forms, so then one needs to dig even deeper and understand which forms are most useful to organisms and which ones might be toxic. Iodine is a good example, which is naturally present as iodide (I-), iodate, IO3-, and a large number of lower concentration organic and inorganic forms. Iodide, while not the highest concentration form (iodate is), is more bioavailable and the one that I recommend dosing (if one chooses to dose iodine, whether it is useful or not is a different question).

Would bulk rock phosphate for organic farming work as an additive? Jw out of curiosity. Another thing I was wondering about is greensand. Mainly because I already buy literal tons of both.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 22, 2021

N.Sreefer said:
Would bulk rock phosphate for organic farming work as an additive? Jw out of curiosity. Another thing I was wondering about is greensand. Mainly because I already buy literal tons of both.

Additive for what purpose?

Do you have a link to the product you are referring to? Lots of different things might be called "bulk rock phosphate".

N.Sreefer · Mar 22, 2021

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Additive for what purpose?

Do you have a link to the product you are referring to? Lots of different things might be called "bulk rock phosphate".

Phosphorite I have no idea how soluble it would be but I was thinking its a slow release source of phosphate for supplementing a LNS and would probably be colonized by beneficial bacteria. And jersey greensand for potassium. I've only ever used these in horticulture so I have no idea if they would be of use (sorry if its a dumb question!). But the price is right.

N.Sreefer · Mar 22, 2021

N.Sreefer said:
Phosphorite I have no idea how soluble it would be but I was thinking its a slow release source of phosphate for supplementing a LNS and would probably be colonized by beneficial bacteria. And jersey greensand for potassium. I've only ever used these in horticulture so I have no idea if they would be of use (sorry if its a dumb question!). But the price is right.

By greensand I'm referring to glauconite greensand

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 22, 2021

N.Sreefer said:
Phosphorite I have no idea how soluble it would be but I was thinking its a slow release source of phosphate for supplementing a LNS and would probably be colonized by beneficial bacteria. And jersey greensand for potassium. I've only ever used these in horticulture so I have no idea if they would be of use (sorry if its a dumb question!). But the price is right.

Both potassium and phosphate additives are cheap as food grade products (sodium phosphate, potassium chloride). I don't think trying to get a rock to slowly dissolve is the easiest or best way to dose these.

zachtos · Mar 22, 2021

Hello, I made a spread sheet that has calculations on how to make all the elements you need. I've been running over 2 years now no water change. Feel free to use this to make a better calculator or whatever you wish as a community. Let me know if anyone finds a mistake, but it's obviously working.
zachtos diy ICP supplements

AlbertGF · Mar 22, 2021

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
For anyone interested in dosing DIY chemicals, the critical first step is to determine what form any particular element takes in seawater. That information is available in many places, such as the book "Chemical Oceanography" by Millero.

Some elements take many forms, so then one needs to dig even deeper and understand which forms are most useful to organisms and which ones might be toxic. Iodine is a good example, which is naturally present as iodide (I-), iodate, IO3-, and a large number of lower concentration organic and inorganic forms. Iodide, while not the highest concentration form (iodate is), is more bioavailable and the one that I recommend dosing (if one chooses to dose iodine, whether it is useful or not is a different question).

Well , thank you, but I was only trying to reproduce some of the Aquaforest additives for myself and was looking for some help deciding what chemical was a better choose for each additive. I have read many forums and threads but I am not chemist nor oceanographer, my only capability is to calculate how much of each product I should add to an aquarium based on the ICP results. The problem is that I do not know if the chemicals listed above are good enough or there are better options.

unchaotic · Mar 22, 2021

zachtos said:
Hello, I made a spread sheet that has calculations on how to make all the elements you need. I've been running over 2 years now no water change. Feel free to use this to make a better calculator or whatever you wish as a community. Let me know if anyone finds a mistake, but it's obviously working.
zachtos diy ICP supplements

Looks like I picked a wonderful day to discover and follow this thread!

AlbertGF · Mar 22, 2021

zachtos said:
Hello, I made a spread sheet that has calculations on how to make all the elements you need. I've been running over 2 years now no water change. Feel free to use this to make a better calculator or whatever you wish as a community. Let me know if anyone finds a mistake, but it's obviously working.
zachtos diy ICP supplements

Wow! Thank you for sharing this. I will study your spread sheet!

zachtos · Mar 22, 2021

AlbertGF said:
Wow! Thank you for sharing this. I will study your spread sheet!

I'm an Electrical Engineer, not a chemist, but I understand molecular formulas etc. I do NOT know if the chloride based versions of elements I chose are bio-available or not. I'm not even sure Randy can answer that for each item. And several elements, may appear to be used by my corals (barium for instance), but I dose them anyways. They may precipitate out, or be used as a by product (like magnesium). I only know what has worked for me is to stop doing water changes and just re-up elements that are missing. I don't get hung up on the amounts anymore, as long as they are not zero, then they are not a bottleneck. I would like more lighting though.