Why NOT to use borax / baking soda

[Otty]

Originally Posted by Grotto

I've been using a 4 to 1 ratio, thats what Tangster recommended to me, no problems at all keeping my levels where I want them. Personally I'm going to follow the advise of someone with 30+ years of saltwater experiences under their belt. Thats not something you can learn in a chem lab . I'll take my chances, Tang hasn't led me wrong so far.

Amen.....me too Grotto. Haven't had a problem with my tank either and I have been doing this for over a year now.

[Bogie]

Originally Posted by Otty

Amen.....me too Grotto. Haven't had a problem with my tank either and I have been doing this for over a year now.

I'm with Otty, BMSHEHAN, Grotto, and Tangster.

I'm not having any problems at all using a 4:1 arm & hammer/borax mix.
I only add it to raise the alk when needed, which I test for.

As a side task, Wildreef and Wareagle, why don't you boys pony up the money to have your chemist also test the pre-mixed Seachem, Kent, and whatever else buffers and alk raisers to see what the contents are (shoudl be on the label anyway...) and see how much you pay per pound of carbonates/borate versus what we use. Do the same for calcium additives too please.


Oh, yeah, and I also use Tangster's calcium, and you couldn't touch his prices

[ShrimpSkin]

Its great that this Dr Howell took the time to research this. To me it seems that this experiment was done to show why not to use this method, I guess in a passive aggressive attempt to show some people on the board up and I guess win this battle between methods. I say thiis because what does this article prove? Nothing. People that have been using the baking soda method are not going to stop because it's working for them, if it wasn't they wouldn't be using it.

[inwall75]

I propose that it doesn't really make a whole lot of difference how you do it as long as you understand what you're doing. If your calcifying corals are growing, you have enough carbonates in your system.

I had 20,000 gallons of water under my care and using baking powder and Borax was perfect for me. Baking that much baking powder was not really an option for me due to the quantity needed. (Before I came, they were going through a 5 gallon bucket of Superbuffer dKh a month....quite expensive).

Many of the reefing products out there are made with easy to obtain chemicals. For example, Salifert Phosphate Killer, and Blue Life Phosphate Control, and Caribsea Phos-Buster Pro are nothing but lanthanum chloride which are available at any pool or spa store. Heck, the Trace Elements that salt companies so proudly tout are nothing but impurities already found in the Sodium Chloride.

The following products contain Borax:

Seachem Marine Aquarium Buffer
Kent Probuffer dkh (liquid)
Kent Super buffer dkh
ESV Bionic (liquid)

The following don't:

Seachem Reef Builder
Seachem Reef Buffer
Seachem Reef Carbonate
Reef Pure KH Buffer

As I pointed out on my other thread,

Is there a danger from using Borax....there can be if you don't understand what's going on. If you have a lot of stonies or LPS and your total alkalinity is good and your pH is good and you don't understand why your stonies are barely growing.....you have too much Borate in your system.

On that same thread I recommended buying an alkalinity test kit that measures both Carbonates and Borates.

Every tank and every system is different. I used to have a 200 gallon and a 75 gallon tied together on the same sump. To keep my Calcium and Alkalinity levels sufficient, I had to dose Kalk every night, separately supplement more Calcium and Alkalinity a couple times per week and supplement Magnesium weekly. My SPS would literally grow out of my water. I didn't frag for fun, I HAD to frag. I suggest that this proves that you can use baking powder and Borax. Am I recommending that other people do it. Nope, do it if you understand what's going on in your tank and you want to. By the same token, I'm not recommending that people don't do it either. Do whatever you're comfortable with.

[geekdafied]

Ya know I just reread that original post. Something caught my attention. The "aqua-idiocy".... I figured I would google it. Well guess what I found.... "Those that promote untested and unscientific methods are a few of the credentials that are essential to apply for aqua guru™ status. The internet provides an ideal platform for arm chair chemists to expound aqua-idiocy™."

Thats not from Dr Howell, Thats from Mike Del Prete. To me that looks like the good Dr Howell is full of it, or somebody is trying to make theirself look like they did some research when infact they just copied and pasted a bunch of stuff in Word and did some screen captures of it to make it appear to be from an email.

[Tangster]

My Daddy can Beat up Dr. Howell

[Matt Rogers]

Ok, apparently Borax is the new 'BB/DSB' debate.

I am fine with discussion if people can keep their heads, but this thread resorts to ridicule like this one: New Idea! it will be closed.

I am not sure of the motivation of the new thread. I guess to 'balance' the WHY TO USE borax thread: http://www.3reef.com/forums/water-ch...ore-49604.html

So what have we learned ... if we take this e-mail at face, the guy says it works but you have to keep ratios right. Something others have mentioned.

So that's a point worth making again I suppose. Do your homework. Double check your numbers. Be careful.

But let's keep it there and not parse the whole thing and make this into a 'does this guy even exist.' Because his email only says so much and little definitively.

[inwall75]

Originally Posted by Matt Rogers

I am not sure of the motivation of the new thread. I guess to 'balance' the WHY TO USE borax thread: http://www.3reef.com/forums/water-ch...ore-49604.html

Just to clarify. I don't care how anyone manages their water chemistry. I wasn't really promoting it.....I just didn't want anyone afraid of this method either. I'm kind in the same situation as mine and Covey's BB/DSB thread. Each method has pros and cons and I use both so I just told the pros and cons of BB and the pros and cons of DSB. At the store where I was taking care of the chemistry for over 20,000 gallons and once upon a time long ago, in a galaxy far away, I had reasons for using baking powder and Borox. Now that I only have two small nanos at home, I use Seachem. (Doesn't hurt that I got it for free though)

[Bogie]

So basically, my view is use what you want.
If you are willing to spend extra on the brand labels for the same thing, go ahead and no one is telling you that you are wrong. Maybe just spending more money than you have to, unless you're getting it free like inwall75 .

The 4:1 ratio, is basically a guideline, not a rule.
But if you know what you're doing and want to raise alk, and your pH is fine use the arm & hammer. If you need to raise to raise your alk AND buffer (raise) your pH (for example from ph 7.3 to pH 8.4) then use arm & hammer and borate. If you suspect to much borate or are at all concerned, test for it. The test kit (that inwall75 mentioned), Arm & Hammer, and Borax is still way cheaper than using the name brand buffers and carbonates, FWIW.

And using the name brand products below without knowing what you're doing or testing, you could still "overdose" on borate. So there's no way to be safe if you don't understand what you're doing, and do it right, no matter which products you choose to use.

The following products contain Borax:

Seachem Marine Aquarium Buffer
Kent Probuffer dkh (liquid)
Kent Super buffer dkh
ESV Bionic (liquid)

[R34dawn]

Originally Posted by Grotto

I've been using a 4 to 1 ratio, thats what Tangster recommended to me, no problems at all keeping my levels where I want them. Personally I'm going to follow the advise of someone with 30+ years of saltwater experiences under their belt. Thats not something you can learn in a chem lab . I'll take my chances, Tang hasn't led me wrong so far.

Pretty much this thread is for the inexperience aquarists, maybe those that have enough of a time just keeping the parameters right! btw, I only base on proof when it comes to my fish tank! and do NOT have a preference on any so called guru with out any proof, as I mention earlier, if the method you use works for you!?! fine then! I seek results from what I see! and those fellow reefers that post their tank on the forum as well. I have no intentions to follow or fall after what one individual has to offer unless he or she have a tank thread of some sort where you can observe on detail how the aquarium progress as time passes by. but bare in mind that the method
that tangster/inwall post are based on large quantities of water not on your regular 135g and smaller tanks, there for it would be kinda ackword to consider as the smaller tanks are not hard to dose store bought chemicals due to them being less forgiven also!
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