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Bye - Bye B-Ionic

redfishbluefish

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
About three weeks ago I mentioned in my Tale (page 5, posts 43 & 45), that a five gallon bucket of B-Ionic Calcium sprung a leak. It was because the bucket was defective and cracked on the injection point on the bottom. Interestingly, Monroereef also mentioned that the same thing had just happened to him.

I wrote ESV an email explaining the situation. They responded with additional questions about lot numbers, and when and where the product was purchased. Since then I haven’t heard anything.

I originally was making my own two-part, and still had the better part of the 12 pound bag of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, and an enormous (life-time supply) bag of Dow Flakes. So I’m saying bye-bye B-Ionic and going back to Randy’s homemade two-part. It is so easy and very cheap to make.
 
TanksNStuff

TanksNStuff

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Yea, that's not what I would call good customer service. 3 weeks is a long time to wait for a reply.

I've used the alk part of Randy's recipe and if I hadn't tried the 2-part products from Bulk Reef Supply I'd probably go back to that. In fact, I just re-ordered the calcium from BRS but plan to use the baking soda for alk on my next batch.
 
Sunny

Sunny

NJRC Member
Article Contributor
redfishbluefish said:
About three weeks ago I mentioned in my Tale (page 5, posts 43 & 45), that a five gallon bucket of B-Ionic Calcium sprung a leak. It was because the bucket was defective and cracked on the injection point on the bottom. Interestingly, Monroereef also mentioned that the same thing had just happened to him.

I wrote ESV an email explaining the situation. They responded with additional questions about lot numbers, and when and where the product was purchased. Since then I haven’t heard anything.

I originally was making my own two-part, and still had the better part of the 12 pound bag of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, and an enormous (life-time supply) bag of Dow Flakes. So I’m saying bye-bye B-Ionic and going back to Randy’s homemade two-part. It is so easy and very cheap to make.
Click to expand...

Ditto. They responded with more questions and then nothing. What a shame. Some guy BOB emailed me.
I switched to BRS two part. So far so good.

Sunny
 
redfishbluefish

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
For under $30, I have a 50 pound bag of calcium chloride (Dow Flake) and a 13.5 pound bag of Arm and Hammer Baking Soda. For one gallon of Calc, it takes 2 ½ cups of Dow Flakes, and for Alk, 2 ¼ cups of Baking Soda. For the Calcium, I have a life-time supply, and the Baking Soda, I can only guess about a three to five year supply. This compares to four gallons each of B-Ionic for $79.95. For me, that’s only a little over a year’s supply for the B-Ionic.

For me, that’s a no-brainer!
 
redfishbluefish

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Olivier said:
where do you buy these? dow flake?
Click to expand...

It was a couple years ago…True Value Hardware Stores carried both Dow Flakes and Mag Flakes. I bought both at a True Value store at the intersection of Woodbridge Avenue and Old Post Road in Edison, NJ.
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

paul - ever consider using kalk instead? You can get kalk that has Mag formulated into it already.

or am i misunderstanding the purpose behind randy's formula?
 
redfishbluefish

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Phil, educate me! Randy’s formula is just like B-Ionic, or any other two part system. You have an alkalinity part and a calcium part. Now he also has a recipe for making your own magnesium using Epsom salt and Mag Flakes. I’ve also made up this as well. I currently add two-part manually, every day, but plan on eventually going to dosing pumps.

Now I don’t know much about kalk, except that when your reactor goes nuts, it kills your tank. :p What would be the advantages of going to kalk? Again, I’m clueless….but I am under the impression I could add it manually, include it in my top off (manually or with a reactor), or directly to the sump/tank with a reactor. Again, what does it buy me by switching?
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

The big benefit is the stuff is cheap. So large tanks that need a lot of it - it's much cheaper vs 2 part. The big risk is that the stuff is caustic and at saturation it's pH is at 12 so as you noted overdosing a large bucket of water at ph12 is very bad for the tank. Hence the need to dose it moderately via ATO or a DIY dripper (link below). Although in most homes - Co2 is an issue and it depresses pH. Kalk helps to keep pH up for my tank (8.4 to 8.5)

http://wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_6/volume_6_2/kalkwasser.htm

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/index.php

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/skip/agu/kalkdripper.htm



 
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