Cheap Calcium Chloride substitute.

[MikeP]

I was reading a thread about tests on a particular brand of de-icer on Reefcentral that's about 80% CaCl2 and the rest water.

Here is the link on RC from Randy Holmes-Farley:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=318191&highlight=deicer

It appears you can buy 'DowFlake' which is Dow's brandname for this chemical in both deicer and also apparently avalable at pool supply stores. Anyone tried this? I was thinking of buying a bulk supply of CaCl2 lab grade but if this is almost as good it would save a heck of a lot of money over buying turbo calcium.

[matt]

Mike;

Don't mean to pry, but don't you have a nice reactor? Why the calcium chloride?

[Instar]

Whats in the "water" part. Its definitely not going to be RO/DI. If there is even 1% residual trash in there, you have to deal with toxic heavy metals. Not worth it IMO. Pool grade or Deicer grade is not ACS pure. But then "Lab" grade means absolutely nothing either by any standards. It also does not have to be any amount of purity by law or any standard and that means it can have a very high residual amount of contamination and can vary greatly from batch to batch. You are more than likely way better off to use GaryP's method than any other if you have to suppliment a reactor.

[mharris7]

I think the way it works is that 20% of the molecule is actually water. There's no room in the molecule for anything else. I'm not a chemistry guy, but Randy REALLY knows his stuff, and if he wouldn't have a problem putting it in the tank I'd trust him.

There's also a history of folks using this stuff with good results.

[GaryP]

I have thought about deicing salt as well but I was concerned with what Larry said, the impurities. I actually looked into buying lab grade (ACS) and it was more expensive than Turbo calcium. At least with lab grade you know what the impurities are. They are printed on the container.

The water is in the form of a hydrate. A lot of lab chemical contain some water. The bad part is that hydrates have a tendency to solidfy into a solid block. The best thing I have found to save on cost is to buy a bucket of Turbo calcium online. I don't know of any LFS that carries the bucket sized containers. A bucket last forever. I make my own buffer and add both the calcium and buffer to seperate containers of make up water. That's the closest thing I have come up with for a low cost two part system. It seems to work well. I have never seen any indication of "ionic imbalance." I make up 1#/gal. of Turbo calcium & 1/2#/gal. of buffer in RO water as stock solutions that is added to a 6 gal. jug of make up water. The amount of the stock solutions to add to your make up water will depend on the amount being used by your critters.

Gary

[MikeP]

Mike;

Don't mean to pry, but don't you have a nice reactor? Why the calcium chloride?

Matt- reactor is working fine but I use it (calcium / buffer supplements) periodically on other tanks I have - not in any great quantity but it would be nice to know an inexpensive alternative in an often expensive hobby.

[GaryP]

I think the de-icing salt is mined, sort of like rock salt, without being purified in any way.

Gary