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Re: Potassium carbonate
On Sun, 11 Jun 2000, Tim Gooden wrote:
> I have a source for potassium carbonate at the following price points:
> 4 oz $3.00
> 16 oz $5.00
> 5 lb. $15.00
> Is this a reasonable price range? I was thinking about getting the 16 oz,
> figuring that it would last me quite a while for dosing a 55 gallon tank.
I haven't shopped about, but $5.00 for several years' supply sounds pretty
good to me.
> Is the potassium carbonate a better or worse idea for my water
> chemistry? Thanks for the info.
Probably a worse idea than using potassium bicarbonate. Both provide
about 14 mg K per degree of buffer capacity, but potassium carbonate is a
fairly strong base and it might put your pH through the roof. You should
be able to correct that with added CO2, but it's a problem that you don't
have to deal with (at least not to the same degree) if you use potassium
bicarbonate.
Roger Miller