Am I Crazy for Using Ice Melt Products?

[redfishbluefish]

I’ve been using Randy’s DIY two part from around 2008 or so. Extremely happy, with corals growing like weeds, and only costing me around 3 bucks a year for dosing alk, calc and mag. At the time I could not get DowFlake and ended up using Prestone Driveway Heat for my calcium source. Well, I just made my last gallon from that original 50 pound bag, and am in need of more. Now since then rumblings have been going around that they changed their source or processing, resulting in more bromine. Don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve now noticed that SWI’s Prestone Driveway Heat is harder to come by. Note that although labeled as “Prestone”, it is made by SWI (Scotwood Industries). Searching around, my local HD now sells SWI Winter Heat ice melt. In looking at the MSDS’s (now just called SDS), both the Driveway Heat and Winter Heat appear to be the exact same MSDS with all their numbers. Not knowing for sure, and the potential bromine issue, and now no longer mentioning percentages of ingredients in their SDS (labeled as proprietary), I was now reluctant going with this product.

So here’s the crazy part….instead of going with the SWI product, I searched other Calcium products and found Nedmag Calcium Chloride Tech (also at HD) that includes the percentages in their SDS. I now know the range of percentages, but don’t know trace elements that might be there. I also know, from the percent of calcium chloride, that it’s the anhydrous form, similar to the Prestone product. I did attempt to buy this yesterday, with my local HD stating that they had 471 50 lb bags only to find that, yes they have it, but not on the floor yet.

 

[Semisonyx]

I’m using prestone driveway heat as well. Cheap and works great. I doubt anything that significant has changed but the label. Trying the Nedmag is perfectly fine as well. I’ll probably try it if I can’t find Prestone when I run out in 2023, lol.

 

[bishoptf]

I’ve been using Randy’s DIY two part from around 2008 or so. Extremely happy, with corals growing like weeds, and only costing me around 3 bucks a year for dosing alk, calc and mag. At the time I could not get DowFlake and ended up using Prestone Driveway Heat for my calcium source. Well, I just made my last gallon from that original 50 pound bag, and am in need of more. Now since then rumblings have been going around that they changed their source or processing, resulting in more bromine. Don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve now noticed that SWI’s Prestone Driveway Heat is harder to come by. Note that although labeled as “Prestone”, it is made by SWI (Scotwood Industries). Searching around, my local HD now sells SWI Winter Heat ice melt. In looking at the MSDS’s (now just called SDS), both the Driveway Heat and Winter Heat appear to be the exact same MSDS with all their numbers. Not knowing for sure, and the potential bromine issue, and now no longer mentioning percentages of ingredients in their SDS (labeled as proprietary), I was now reluctant going with this product.

So here’s the crazy part….instead of going with the SWI product, I searched other Calcium products and found Nedmag Calcium Chloride Tech (also at HD) that includes the percentages in their SDS. I now know the range of percentages, but don’t know trace elements that might be there. I also know, from the percent of calcium chloride, that it’s the anhydrous form, similar to the Prestone product. I did attempt to buy this yesterday, with my local HD stating that they had 471 50 lb bags only to find that, yes they have it, but not on the floor yet.

I am looking also what did you decide to go with?

 

[Gtinnel]

I know this thread is over a month old so my opinion won't matter to the OP, but here it's anyway.
When I started dosing I was using prestone driveway heat and honestly it seemed to work just fine. When I would refill my dosing container there would always be this pink goo left in the bottom. It never seemed to harm anything but it bothered me not knowing what the pink goo was. Once I started getting more and increasingly expensive corals I realized that a product made in a factory where contamination likely doesn't matter seemed like a risk that wasn't worth taking to save a few dollars. So now I buy the bulk BRS calcium chloride and unless you're dosing incredibly large amounts the cost of it is negligible compared to everything else in this hobby.

It's a risk not worth taking IMO.