ATTENTION: Anyone using CaCL2 for tank READ!!!

 

1) Hobbyists find a way to substitute an expensive , highly marked up item with a much cheaper non - hobby related equivalent

 

2) Word spreads throughout the hobby and demand for the equivalent item soars while demand for the more expensive "hobby" versions slack off

 

3) Representatives of the expensive hobby versions publicly "caution" that the cheaper alternative "might not be as good or as safe" until hobbyists do a little research and prove (to everyone) that the cheaper alternative is the exact same thing at a fraction of the cost

 

4) For some unexplained reason the cheaper alternative either gets "changed" so it is no longer the same or just "disappears"...

 

The best recent example of this would be the whole Southdown play sand / Carribean aragonite sand thing... After hobbyists found out that you could buy 50 lb bags of Southdown play sand at Home Depot for $4 a bag and use it in place of the $30 - $40 bags of Carribean aragonite sold at hobby retailers word spread like wildfire on places like RC. At first it was suggested (by hobby suppliers) that it wasn't the same grade / type of sand and might be harmful to a reef tank; hobbyists were able to show that it was the exact same sand only put in a different bag... then hobbyists reported that it was suddenly getting harder to find at the local Home Depot; some reported that when they found some they were actually asked by the Home Depot personnel "You're not using this in an aquarium, are you?" and told that Home Depot was asked (by whom?) to not sell to anyone for use in an aquarium, only for sandboxes... eventually Home Depot simply stopped carrying the Southdown brand. A few hobbyists actually went to the Southdown plant in Florida and found out the hobby "industry" pressured Southdown into no longer bagging up the play sand for Home Depot - by threatening Southdown with boycotting their product and only buying from a different supplier of aragonite...

 

It may just be the "cynical ex-NYer" in me but I smell another rat here .

 

I would ask the general question of how, if Dow's process change is now causing elevated bromide levels in all the "generic" bulk chemical product, how are the manufacturers of the more expensive "name brand" hobby Ca supplements able to still get the correct formulation... when most (if not all) of them get their bulk from Dow and similar chemical manufacturers in the first place ? 

 

Hmmmmmmm...

 

 

 

 

 

 

i just need to figure out how