Duradrakon T : Buffer

EDIT: sorry maybe this should be in Water instead of cichlids... admins please move if so.

Hi All.. And Tim..!

So i orderd som Duradrakon T from www.drak.de
which im very excited to try. Essentially i'll be getting
as close as possible to the water in lake Tanganyika in a much
more scientific and measurable way (No more of a pinch of this and a pinch of that.)

My problem is that i've got rediculously soft water.
This product consists of two compounds that added and quantified by
first comparing against your current gH and KH

Great...except one small thing.

Up until now i have aged and buffered my water in a 100 gallon header tank
within my fish room. A powerhead and airstone in here help dissolve my buffer
(sodium bicarb, epsom salts and marine salt)

But with this Duradrakon it specifically states

Both mixtures A and B must be dissolved separately from one-another and should only be mixed together directly before being added into the aquarium. This should if possible take place in a diluted form, in order to avoid the appearance of cloudy water in the form of un-dissolved calcium and magnesium carbonates.

. So i cant add both products to the header tank knowing it's 400 litres / 100 gallons. and know that my header tank is tang ready..

So my options are:
I could add one of the mixtures to the header tank and then add the second one when im changing the water in the tank and figure out how much of the second mixture to dissolve on an ad-hoc basis.v

I could get rid of my header tank and get two smaller header tanks with the mixture dissolved
sepearatly but this is messy and involves getting my plumber over. MEH.

Anyone else got any other ideas?
Tim what do you do? Do you do it per water change?
If so how? dissolve in buckets before topping up?

Wish i read the small print on the site first.

Looking forward to hearing any ideas you may have

Hy Mick,
i use Duradrakon T and for my Malawis Duradrakon M.That company has absolute top products aswell for fertilizer for planted tanks.But now to your questions.You have actually NO problems at all.Step 1:Get a electronic scale (Argos:name SALTER ca.15 euros)Step2: Messure exact what litres your tank holds.Step3: messure what Kh and what Gh ur water has.Step 4.Get the powder weight what u need.Step5 get 2 buggets half filled with warm water and dissolve the 2 powders seperate of each other.Step6 mix the 2 buggets together and put them in your tank.Make sure its mixing in your storage tank (small powerhead or airstone).Thats it.Sounds more complicated than it is.Hope it helps.Regards,Tim
P.s.If anyone is interested in products of that company(www.drak.de) let me know.i order regular and get discounts.To give nobody a wrong idea-i am NOT selling this product,i am only offering to get a discount.Regards,Tim

interesting, might try this myself at some stage.

Excellent, thanks for the reply tim..

Going to try this over the weekend. Derek i'll drop out a sample to you
too so you can give it a try... ive only heard great things about it... and if
tim can bulk order then happy days.

Hy Mick,
any probs ring me.Let me know how you got on.Regards,Tim

Update:

Here's my details so far

Header tank : 375 litres exactly
Water going into header tank:

gH : 3 drops = 60 ppm (x 0.056) = 3.36 dH
KH : 4 drops = 40 ppm (x 0.056) = 2.24 dH

off to argos to get a scales now.

warning: this could be the most boring post ever on this forum
so only read on if you've really nothing better to be doing..!


So having worked it out for my hardness
i needed 12.6g per 50 litres of compound B
or 94.5g per header tank

and 22.5g per 50 litres of compound A
or 168.75g per header tank

I had ordered 200g B + 500g A so this tub
will do me just 2 header tanks full

Ive done some more disturbing sums!

I have approx 1730 litres in my fish room and if i decide to
change 33% of the water weekly that means i'll need 1.5 header tanks
of buffered water per week which works out at 78 header tanks per year.

This works out to 7,371 grams of Duradrakon B
and 13,162 grams of Duradrakon A.

Online the price for 1KG bags of A : 48 euro
and online price for 1KG bags of B : 91 euro

which would work out at 1261 euro per year... OUCH

Why oh why did i fall in love with tangs and not softwater fish???
Ill see how it goes.. if it's a great product then ill see how much
bulk i can order of it to keep the cost down.

The only alternative is to sell off my tangs and start breeding
apistos or other softwater loving fish.

arabesque wrote:

...

The only alternative is to sell off my tangs and start breeding
apistos or other softwater loving fish.

I don't think so, there are hundreds of people keeping tangs that have never heard of this wonder additive!


Daragh

arabesque wrote:

The only alternative is to sell off my tangs and start breeding
apistos or other softwater loving fish.

if you do I want first dibs on your stock...

Hi Daragh,
nobody was talking about wonder additive.Its another way (very high quality way)instead of using baking powder and so on-to make water suitable for our fish.My water is 2 Gh,9 Kh-way to soft for Tangs or even Malawis.If you have the right water coming out of your tab and have to use no additives at all your a blessed man.Only want to pass on experience which works for me.
Regards,Tim

If i had semi hard water i'd be fine continuing to keep tangs.. but
getting the water stable is a nightmare using the other buffer recipes.. sodium bicarb, marine salt and epsom salts

Im considering getting an ro unit and then building back up the water so its suitable for tangs
so am just trying out different treatments before taking the plunge.

Update... 48 hours later and have tested the water

gH : 7 drops - 140ppm (x0.056) : 7.84 in German scale
KH: 27 drops - 270ppm " ". : 15.5 in German scale


So gH still seems low...

PH is at 8.7

love to hear what you think!?

Hi Mick,
Your Kh went up like it should.Your Gh went up but not enough-did you use the right amount?
Regards,Tim