What Chemicals at what price.........?

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

Just a bit of survey. I'm of a mind to start supplying by post or otherwise reef chemicals in powder form with instructions how to use them. What I need from you guys is-

What you currently pay?

What you find most expensive or difficult to get hold of?

What you pay for Balling Salt?

If any of this would conflict with anyone else interests on the site?

What really you want and at what price.......?

This is all to work out if it will be cost effective for me to do this and also if there is sufficient demand to justify purchasing equipment and sourcing suppliers. I would welcome any help you could give me

Chris

[MR Teee]

Looked into this for Reefcorals shop online Chris.

Heres My take.

Bloody plastic tubs are hard to source cheaply.
Certain amount of labelling is required by law, such as on kalk powder, other nasties.

Nothing is hard to get hold of, all of it can be bought in bulk in one form or another. But it becomes harder to guarentee purity the cheaper you go.

Basics will always be required.

Calcium Chloride
Mag sulphate/chloride mixed in the correct balanced ration
Sodium carbonate/bicarbonate in a balance mix

Kalk For those that want to dose it (IMO its going out of fasion )

Oh and as you've said, balling salt. Not many people use the full balling method, alot of them go for balling lite, which is supposidly used with normal salt. So i dont think there willm be a demand for the original balling salt.

All should have clear instructions for use, how and when to dose and what quantities for what chemicals. I was going to include an online calculator on the forum and also a support section for any issues that were raised.

Price is difficult, but as long as it is not a blatent ripoff like the bottled potions and lotions you get in the LFS, then you should be ok. People with larger tanks etc will nearly always stick to the bulk buys.

I would have thought 250 / 500 / 1kg sized tubs is good. And people would always pay a little extra for any online support that would come with them.

[mousehunter22]

Looked into this for Reefcorals shop online Chris.

Heres My take.

Bloody plastic tubs are hard to source cheaply.
Certain amount of labelling is required by law, such as on kalk powder, other nasties.

Nothing is hard to get hold of, all of it can be bought in bulk in one form or another. But it becomes harder to guarentee purity the cheaper you go.

Basics will always be required.

Calcium Chloride
Mag sulphate/chloride mixed in the correct balanced ration
Sodium carbonate/bicarbonate in a balance mix

Kalk For those that want to dose it (IMO its going out of fasion )

Oh and as you've said, balling salt. Not many people use the full balling method, alot of them go for balling lite, which is supposidly used with normal salt. So i dont think there willm be a demand for the original balling salt.

All should have clear instructions for use, how and when to dose and what quantities for what chemicals. I was going to include an online calculator on the forum and also a support section for any issues that were raised.

Price is difficult, but as long as it is not a blatent ripoff like the bottled potions and lotions you get in the LFS, then you should be ok. People with larger tanks etc will nearly always stick to the bulk buys.

I would have thought 250 / 500 / 1kg sized tubs is good. And people would always pay a little extra for any online support that would come with them.



Dito what he said:D:D:D

[cl0wn]

have stopped using balling light, had most trouble sourcing ca chloride, found some cheap stuff for dehumidifiers, but wasn't sure of the purity? mag chloride i managed to get for £20 for 25k, let me know if you want the link. bicarb was the easy part. also would have been nice to source some cheap dosing pumps.

[androo]

hay clown just want to let you know the ro adaptor 4 my tap hasnt turned up mate just wanted to let you know didnt want you to think i was un greatful:confused:
thanks
andy

[Tetley]

Hi,

Seems this has been discussed before, and as before there would be little or no mileage for a profit to made.

Its not hard sourcing the chemicals, there are many online sites, the cost can be a problem, but if you were to group buy , these costs would be diluted

Dosing is easy, just work out usage and add it back, nothing hard about that, and again there are many sites that tell you how.

I suspect all Reefranch would do, is repackage the chemicals in a fancy bottle with some fancy instuctions on how to use, and reefers would be expected to pay over the odds for the fancy packaging.

JMO

ATB

Tets.

[cl0wn]

hay clown just want to let you know the ro adaptor 4 my tap hasnt turned up mate just wanted to let you know didnt want you to think i was un greatful:confused:
thanks
andy
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:confused: was posted sat on way to tesco's, would have thought it would be there now, give it a couple of days if it hasn't turned up i'll see if i have another.

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

Just to clarify our position on this. I wish to provide the right chemicals at the right price. i.e. less than people currently pay. I was also going to provide these in no frills packaging to keep my and your costs down. I would have to adhere to current legislation.

Many thanks for your input. If I can get the right figures for what you pay for say
250; 500; 1kg tubs then I could perhaps work out if it would be cost effective.

I could make up stable forms of the chemicals in liquid form. This is not as simple as people think. You can't just dissolve the chemical in solution and then expect it to stay in solution for around 2 years. Stabilising it is the difficult bit. However, would people prefer liquid?

Thanks once again for your input. Can anyone help further?

Chris

[Valentini]

I think the guys that have posted are not really your target customer as they all ready source cheap bulk chems and have the knowledge to mix there own , However I think people like myself who don’t have the confidence to stray away from the branded over price chems would use your products.<O:p
However you can have the best product at the lowest price but its putting it out there , marketing is always the hardest problem for the small guy. <O:p

New Era got there marketing spot on at the end of the day a doubt there flake is really much better that there competitors but there marketing has been a huge success.

[MR Teee]

Calcium Chloride 2 water 99.5% pure crystals - 500g - £ 7.04
Magnesium Chloride 6-water LR - 500 g - £ 4.92
Magnesium Sulphate Crystals - 1 Kg - £ 4.36
Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate - 3 Kg - £ 8.25
Calcium Hydroxide - 3 Kg - £ 7.15
Lugols Iodine Solution - 500 ml - £ 9.17

I would not want them with water added, Dont see the need to pay for water when I can add my own RO to the solutions as and when I want.
Its an unecessary tactic to charge more for the chemicals.

Thats what I pay for My chemicals. I can make up anything I want with the stuff listed above. These have no instructions and come in basic white containers.

I think, as Valentini has said with the correct marketing and adice/backup, people would pay upto 50% more.

If theres anything else you need Chris, dont hesitate mate.

[Timo]

Calcium chloride 500g £8 delivered (calcium chloride 99%5 pure (claimed)).

Red Sea Coral Pro 7kg for £19.99 but in Europe its €15,98. I would buy Reefers Best if you could get it.

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

Many thanks for all your help. I have a Marketing lady on board she's excellent.

I had all this planned before I started the Store but the Store never left me with sufficient time to diversify into all these things.

I am sure people are aware that what you call Balling Lite is not really going to leave the sodium and chloride ions in balance in the water. I suppose it depends how often you use this method and how much your aquarium requires. Has anyone performed Balling Lite for a long time now? Have they observed any unusual effects of increasing the "normal" chloride and sodium ion content of the water for prolonged periods?

Are Balling salts (Sodium Chloride Free) expensive? If I could provide a cheaper alternative would there be potential market there? Could someone let me know how much they can acquire Balling salts for and what quantities they would normally buy? If Balling salts were the same price as normal salts would people use the correct method?

Cheers

Chris

[MR Teee]

Balling lite requires 10% a week water changes, to keep the ions in balance.
lots of the German reefers have used it for years with no side effects at all.

IMO nobody uses the full balling method because the salt is so hard to obtain.
They usually come from Germany and are expensive in terms of a 25kg tub.

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

What you are doing then with Balling lite or what ever you describe is adding both Sodium and Chloride in chemicals such as Sodium Bicarbonate / Sodoium Carbonate and Calcium Chloride / Magnesium Chloride. These obviously up the Carbonate hardness, Calcium and Magnesium BUT also increase the levels of "salt" (Sodium Chloride) in the water.

Then you are telling me that perform water changes to attempt to bring the sodium chloride level back into balance. If this was performed with Balling salt then if the water changes would indeed redress any imbalance because Balling salt does not have any Sodium Chloride in it. Using just normal marine salt will not do the same thing. The sodium and chloride levels will still be higher and not TRULY in balance. I would have thought that over, many, many weeks / months of using this method the NaCl levels will go completelly out of whack. Do people find that the S.G. creeps up in their aquariums over time?

Water changes with normal salt also bring back down the levels of Calcium, Carbonate hardness and Magnesium albeit only by 10%. There is always a balance to be stuck to attain a balanced aquarium. There are always trade-offs.

Adam, you have obviously looked into the prices of Balling salts and you being you would have shopped around. What prices do you find they go for? Any examples?

PS I could formulate Balling Salts to be made here in the UK. Why import when it can be made quite easily here?

[Norvern Rob]

I've been using balling light for over 7 months, and haven't seen the SG creep up at all. I do a weekly 10% water change and the SG always stays at 1.026. I suspect that some sodium chloride is removed by skimming, salt creep, splashes, spills etc and these possibly balance out any build up.

The Calcium Chloride is cheaper to buy from Fauna Marin than Labpak, I pay £9 for a 1kg tub or £29.99 for a 4kg tub. Actually looking at the Labpak website their prices have gone up considerably for small amounts of those chemicals since the last time I looked, I wonder if they've hit onto the fact that a lot of reefers are buying them?

To gain decent sales Calcium Chloride and Mag Chloride I would say need to be around £7-£8 per kilo, 2, 3, 4 kilo tubs with discounts would also be useful. Mag Sulphate would need to be very cheap as 500g of Epsom Salts is only around £2.30 in any chemist. (ideally Both Mag sulphate and Chloride would be mixed in the correct ratio in one container)

IMO there are only 2 main selling points which need to be covered - purity needs to be guaranteed, and obviously price needs to be cheaper than the big boys (Fauna Marin and LP) Some instructions would be helpful for beginners as well.

As for the liquid forms, well have a look in any LFS, I would say they massively outsell the powders as a lot of people haven't got a clue what to do with chemicals and they aren't interested in knowing either. They just want to pour a given measure of something into their tank. If you can premix the solutions and sell them a lot cheaper than the rip off bottles in most shops then I would say there's a market for that as well.

Rob

[MR Teee]

Never really got into the stages of actually doing it Chris, was just at the gathering info stage.

Most of the info has come from here i might add :D

http://www.faunamarin.de/eng/manual_balling-methode.php

Quite interesting as Fauna Marin don't actually make a balling salt :rolleyes:

A for the long term ins and outs of the SG creeping up, Tetley was the only person I know of on here that actually used it for any length of time.


I think most people are interesting in a salt that mixes up everytime to NSW standards.
Personally I am going to go with Reefers Best salt from korralen zucht from now on ( from the makers of zeovit), mainly because they guarentee NSW level of potassium.

[MR Teee]

Ahaaa beaten by Rob :D

Thanks mate, was turning into the adam & chris show again :rolleyes::D

[Tangman]

Hi Scooby UK aka Ady has been using it for quite a while now and has has good results, drop him a pm or i will give him a ring and ask him to give you some info if you want. HTH Twiggy:D:D

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

Many thanks Guys,

Most helpful. I'll do some shopping around, negotiation and let you knoqw how I got on.

Chris

[bjmycroft]

Got to admit, i buy my own raw chemicals off the web. Trace elements like Strontium Chloride though I dont as even a small tub will last years.

-B

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

This seems like a no go for us. Doesn't seem worth it to try and supply. Not that I don't want to supply a service just not enough profit in it. Infact by the time it is delivered etc, etc there would be a loss in it unless we buy in silly bulk amounts. Sorry guys but thanks for helping me check this out.

Chris

[Macca]

are you still carrying on with your new venture chris, outside of supplying chemicals?

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

Yes James Absolutely,

I've got my new carbonate additive to develop, consultancy, project management and other strings to my bow. Might even go into design and installation of systems particularly for businesses. Well see because that is an area where I would also have to offer maintenance and that then goes into the realms of large insurance, transport, staff etc, etc. Either way if I need backing the offer is already there but don't want to be in charge of a virtual sprawling monster like last time.

Chris